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My short blond hair bobbing in the wind as I ran to tag my friends. The air was cold but as a child to me it was like a refreshing playground. Growing up with all older boys in my family wasn’t always ideal. I used to laugh when my peers raved for a brother rather than a sister, except to me at the time, my older brother translated into, annoying boy stages, sports, and puberty. What five-year-old girl really wants to sit around and watch an hour long of pubescent boys skating around like maniacs with their heads cut off? The answer is none, that I know of, but when twenty-one rolls around that might just change. You will find your beating yourself up inside for not sitting down and watching that one last game.

Bees, those pesty little bug like creatures that buzz around you as you try and not let your ice cream melt to the pavement. They swarm you trying to retrieve the sweet substance dripping from your fingers. Bees have no time to play tag with their friends, their childhood consists of developing in a nesting chamber, where they hatch and emerge into their adult form. In their adult form they simply must live in the present. From the time they hatch they have approximately three to eight weeks to gather and feed on nectar and pollen for their hive. For females it can be a little longer while they need to repopulate, building a nest and laying eggs. The longest living bee species is the Queen B and even then, their life only consists of approximately a year. Being present is all the species of bumble bees know how to do. If not present with the task at hand they jeopardize they’re not only their own life but the whole hives.

Nature is our worlds medicine. Every day you step out into a place where till this day we find new species weather be alive or extinct. Nature cures, loves, and cares without expecting anything in return. Nature is true in its form, but as you may have noticed it can change with our evolving world. The question is, is it nature changing itself or the actions of others upon it? You can live everyday where time passes you by, flowers die and rebloom, seasons change but nothing comes back the exact same. Everyday people live their lives without stopping to observe their surrounds. What you see today won’t be the same tomorrow, so don’t think to look twice. Nature is not always sunshine and rainbows, natural disasters strike and what once was a landscape of beauty can turn into a pile of rubble. Humans, a species where we seem to think can never go extinct can be whipped away in an instant. When tomorrow rolls around I hope you stop to see what surrounds you cause you might miss something that will not be there tomorrow.

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Some people refer to football as the hardest thing have ever done. If you have meet any football playing high school or college they will tell you it there whole life. The obligation and time sports takes is like having a child. You constantly need to work on it and spend countless amounts of time. Football is there baby that they are nurturing. It doesn’t matter what is going on practice and games is the most important thing. Like a child when it needs your attention nothing else matters.

Parenthood is one of the hardest things you can do in life. No child is the same and there is no book to follow on how to raise them. There is a general outline but with everyone being different It is not always easy. There is many failures for a parent but the joy of raising their child should be enough. This is like playing a sport when you fail try, try again.

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The most important thing to a child on Easter is the Easter egg hunt. Growing up my family specifically had one golden egg that had in it what I thought was literal gold. My dad made sure to hide the egg in the hardest to find spots; places that never even crossed my mind as I was searching so intensely for something that wasn’t even there. Or places that terrified me like high up the towering tree in the backyard. I was terrified of heights, but I finally worked up the courage to climb up the tree. Slowly I stepped on each branch that looked like it was the least likely to break, and I reached up it on my tip toes, but the egg was just out of reach. I tried to make one more effort and really reach when my worst nightmare happened.

*BANG* The branch snapped, and my body thumped against the ground. I felt a pain in my arm, and I found out my arm was broken. I had never had a broken bone and in the moment, it felt like the worst thing that could ever happened to me. The first stage in the bone healing process is the reactive phase. The body is working fast to react to the unexpected injury and the area swells up as a quick fix to the issue. The next healing phase is the reparative phase. After the body moves past its initial reaction it begins the long-term healing process where the membrane around your bone begins to bridge the gap between broken bone segments using bone and cartilage cells.

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When you lose someone or something you love, you fall into a sadness that seems unhealable. Especially when it is something that has been in your life since you can remember. Losing a dog, in particular, is like losing a best friend. But losing a dog whom your late grandfather got you, is like losing a whole piece of your life. You lose that last piece of someone you cared about, while also losing something you loved all your life. That hole forever feels empty, because you lose the only connection you had left with someone who once meant everything to you; your best friend growing up, your role model, your home away from home. Once you lose this part of you, you also lose your idea of how to function and how to move on. This pain never fully heals, it stays with you forever in a way because you will not find the same piece of that same puzzle again. You may find yourself lost, wandering aimlessly through life for a little bit. Waiting for a piece to fill where this hole is. There seems like there is a never ending pain, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

The ocean is the most unexplored part of the world. Taking up 71 percent of the earth’s surface, only 20 percent has been explored. This leaves 80% of most of our planet unexplored. That means there is much more unknown about our planet than most people think. Leaving this idea that there are creatures and live forms we do not know about, and may never know about. The deepest depth of the ocean is found in the Pacific Ocean and reaches down aout 36,000 ft. This is much farther than anyone has ever imagined going. It is almost impossible for humans to make it to that part of the oceans floor.

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As I walked into my mother’s flower shop, the sweet scent of blossoms and greenery filled my senses. I had always loved the beauty and fragility of flowers and found myself drawn to the vibrant colors and delicate petals. But as I watched my mom carefully tend to each flower, I realized that there was more to these plants than just their aesthetics.

Flowers teach us

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Mirror Mirror On the Wall, Who’s the Prettiest of Them All?

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Mirror Mirror On the Wall, Who’s the Prettiest of Them All?

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(about self-esteem and becoming comfortable with myself)

As I entered my bathroom, I turned on the faucet to fill the snow-colored tub. I looked along the counter to find the perfect soap to make my bubble bath the most relaxing. Lemon, tea tree, and coconut all sounded good, but I finally settled on the most relaxing scent, lavender. As I poured the soap into the quarter-filled bathtub, I turned to put the bottle back and found myself looking at a doppelganger.

I gave her the side-eye, wondering who this person was. I looked at her up and down, thinking about all the things that were wrong with her. Her eyes were not aligned, the left slightly higher than the right. As I started to look down, the body looked like a skeleton had stretched its way into the skin. The ribs poked out like they were trying to reach for some air to breathe. I pushed a big breath out and it turned from a skinny skeleton to a bloated frame of a human.

I turned away from the doppelganger and looked at the tub, the snow-colored tub now is towering over me as if I were standing next to the White Mountains. As I craned my neck, I feel myself backing up and turning into a mouse. I whimper as I become entrapped in a mixture of soap and tears, trying to find the faucet handle to turn this feeling off. I finally turned the faucet before the soap mountain became the next Mount Everest. As I felt the oxygen refilling my lungs, I slowly grabbed a towel and wiped away the anxiety of overfilling the tub. With each wipe, a new affirmation was said: You are strong, You are powerful, You are important. As the tub slowly drained, a sticky substance covering the base screamed out impurities that I chuckled at as I wiped the rest of my anxiety away.
(break as I transition into next part)

Once I completed my cleaning task, I looked out the window to see a butterfly landing on the windowsill. I perked my head as I observed the unknown butterfly. Fiery wings with a soot-colored body came up from the windowsill to the middle of the window, perceiving itself as now a show bird. I was brought back to my second-grade class, where we had a lesson about caterpillars, butterflies and how each has its own beauty. My teacher had always said,

“Each of you are your own caterpillar. You may feel ugly but once you grow and learn, you become a butterfly, unique and beautiful. Your butterfly may look different from others, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less than the person next to you.”

(will continue talking about how many butterflies there are and how they range in uniqueness, might add something about canvases but I doubt it)

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One of the great pastimes for many people in the summer months is building and maintaining a beautiful garden. Building a garden is a loved pastime for many, as it allows people to create beautiful set pieces. While also being made as natural art pieces, they also can act as natural air purifiers, due to the plant’s ability to absorb CO2 while also releasing clean oxygen. Gardens also provide a way to reduce erosion in some areas that keeps sediment out of storm drains and roads. In many ways, it is one of the most relaxing methods of going green. Gardens can also make use of run-off rainwater to prevent harmful pollutants from getting onto local bodies of water. At the end of the day, it just makes you a healthier person, both physically and mentally.

Think about gardening for a second. Going outside, planting new plants of life, hoping that the plant you just placed into the soil will grow big and bear flowers or even food. For this to happen, you would make sure to water the plants, give them enough sunlight, and to use good soil. Knowing this, you do these things because you care about it so much. You hope for it to grow and prosper. You would never want to do anything that would hinder its growth, like using harsh chemicals or giving up taking care of it. One of the biggest ways to care for the plants is by cutting off old dead plants so that the other ones aren’t taken down with it. Healthy plants can’t grow and survive if the plants around them are dying. Seeing gardens that are well taken off show the most vibrant colors of all.

I have been someone who has gone through periods of low self-esteem.

I would not say that I am at all perfect, but I have managed to dig myself out of the hole I had succumbed to in the past.

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Parts of Braid: Background on the grey wolf, Retelling Aesop's Fable "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," and The story of a predatory classmate I went to high school with.
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The grey wolf is known as an ambush predator. It stealthily hunts using the element of surprise to capture its prey, content with waiting in the shadows for the perfect opportunity to attack (“Ambush Predator Animals.”). Devouring animals as large as “elk, moose, deer, and caribou,” or as small as rabbits and beavers, the wolf is a carnivorous beast (“Ambush Predator Animals.”). With its sharp sense of smell, it can track down these creatures with ease. Utilizing sight and hearing far greater than those of any human or dog, it is alerted of even the slightest movement (“Ambush Predator Animals.”). Hidden from view despite being the largest member of the Canidae family, the grey wolf bolts through the wild at high speeds. The prey falls for the trap and meets their demise.

This is typically accomplished in a group as wolves live in packs of anywhere from six to twenty-four members (“Ambush Predator Animals.”). They communicate through calls such as “barks, whines, howls, and growls” and enforce a hierarchical social structure (“Ambush Predator Animals.”). Though usually quite close to each other, there is such a thing as a “lone wolf.” Lone wolves were either forced out of the pack or left the pack to try to form their own. They do not communicate or interact with pack members.
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*will put story about classmate here*
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In Aesop’s famous fable, a wolf made his way past the watchful eye of shepherds by disguising himself as a sheep. As a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it was able to trick a lamb into following it around and easily led it to its death. The Shepherd eventually found out about the wolf’s identity when he hungered for mutton. He prepared to slaughter a sheep but “the first he laid hands on and killed was the Wolf” (Aesop). What is the moral of this story? “The evil doer often comes to harm through his own deceit” (Aesop).