Free Essays on Diamonds On The Inside

When you live in a small town, you often find that your life is being dissected, piece by piece, by the community. In high school, I was in what one would call the â€Å"cool† or popular crowd. I wore whatever name brand clothes were popular at the time; I only hung out with the coolest people and of course, I only dated guys from inside our little clique. I was named Class Favorite all 4 years and was also on Homecoming Court my senior year. Life, in a teenager’s life, was good. Yet, as we all know, no one can be happy when living in a cookie cutter type world. Our community had set forth this mold on who we should be and what we should act like. For the majority of my clique, we were the first ones at church on Sunday, never missing a day of Sunday school. Yet we were also the drunkest ones at Prom and Homecomings. We held offices in our school Y-Club and would talk about how we only wanted the best in our clubs. We were supposed leaders in our school, yet when I look back now, I’m kind of glad nobody followed too much. To other students in our high school, our clique had certain things to live up to. We were to have the hottest guys and the prettiest girls in our clique and everyone was supposed to drive the nicest cars. At dances, we all had to have the best clothes and get the drunkest and at school we were to have the best grades. That was their mold for us, and our purpose was to fill the mold. To parents and member in our community, we had a simple job. We were to be the smartest, most Christian, best looking, and the friendliest people. This is how they wanted us to be and this is how we tried to be. It was like they were reliving their high school lives through us. We were just like puppets and the community and our fellow students held the strings, whether knowing it or not. At my school, we had 2 separate dances. There was the Black Prom and the White Prom. Some people ... Free Essays on Diamonds On The Inside Free Essays on Diamonds On The Inside When you live in a small town, you often find that your life is being dissected, piece by piece, by the community. In high school, I was in what one would call the â€Å"cool† or popular crowd. I wore whatever name brand clothes were popular at the time; I only hung out with the coolest people and of course, I only dated guys from inside our little clique. I was named Class Favorite all 4 years and was also on Homecoming Court my senior year. Life, in a teenager’s life, was good. Yet, as we all know, no one can be happy when living in a cookie cutter type world. Our community had set forth this mold on who we should be and what we should act like. For the majority of my clique, we were the first ones at church on Sunday, never missing a day of Sunday school. Yet we were also the drunkest ones at Prom and Homecomings. We held offices in our school Y-Club and would talk about how we only wanted the best in our clubs. We were supposed leaders in our school, yet when I look back now, I’m kind of glad nobody followed too much. To other students in our high school, our clique had certain things to live up to. We were to have the hottest guys and the prettiest girls in our clique and everyone was supposed to drive the nicest cars. At dances, we all had to have the best clothes and get the drunkest and at school we were to have the best grades. That was their mold for us, and our purpose was to fill the mold. To parents and member in our community, we had a simple job. We were to be the smartest, most Christian, best looking, and the friendliest people. This is how they wanted us to be and this is how we tried to be. It was like they were reliving their high school lives through us. We were just like puppets and the community and our fellow students held the strings, whether knowing it or not. At my school, we had 2 separate dances. There was the Black Prom and the White Prom. Some people ...

Labor vs. Belabor

Labor vs. Belabor Labor vs. Belabor Labor vs. Belabor By Maeve Maddox A reader asks, Can you tell me which is preferred, labor the point or belabor the point. Ive heard them used interchangeably. The Google Ngram Viewer indicates that â€Å"labor the point,† (â€Å"to continue to repeat or explain something that has already been said and understood†) has been around for about 100 years longer than â€Å"belabor the point.† A Web search suggests that the two versions are now used interchangeably: The vice president was apologizing for being long-winded and belaboring points, even as he continued to  belabor  long-winded  points. Not to  belabor the point, but writing for publication is hard. The speaker labored the point  so long that we lost interest. I will not labor the point that the power company doesn’t have many fans in Kenya. The verb belabor has other applications. Literally, â€Å"to belabor† is â€Å"to thrash or buffet with all one’s might,† as in this description from Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Legree was provoked beyond measure by Tom’s evident happiness; and riding up to him, belabored him over his head and shoulders. Figuratively, â€Å"to belabor† is â€Å"to assail with words.† In this quotation from The Red Badge of Courage, the officers are urging their men to move faster: Belabored  by their officers, they began to move forward. When applied to prose, belabored applies to a type of writing style characterized by long sentences and inappropriately erudite or archaic vocabulary: [â€Å"The Turn of the Screw† by Henry James] may have created and sustained tension and horror when it was written, but now it is mostly belabored, overextended prose. While popular criticism struggles to find its bearings, academia keeps on producing mountains of belabored prose for the sake of sustaining the small but diverse group of important thinkers still doing important work.   [A]n unreasonable fascination with how spare one can make a sentence can have an equally destructive effect on the readers experience and draw just as much attention to the authors skill in restraint as belabored prose draws to his cleverness or intelligence. Both extremes are destructive to the overall health of a story. The Bailee translation captures the lyrical flavor of Hegels highly belabored prose.   Ian M. Banks and China Mieville write rings around Herbert’s belabored prose. Sometimes the writer’s use of belabor leaves the reader wondering about its intended meaning in the context: No need to belabor the  awfulness of this film, a romantic comedy devoid of romance.  Ã‚   I dont mean to belabor the discussion of Royals GM Dayton Moore. He had been  belaboring Rockefeller  for many years.   In 2007, the year that NCLB was evidencing belabored breathing, Colemanstarted a new, national-standards-writing company (which turned nonprofit in 2011), Student Achievement Partners.† This event did not belabor the federal intrusion on education but did introduce realities of FedLedEd rearing its head. No primary votes are lost by  belaboring the opposition. Note: A person who is having difficulty breathing is said to exhibit â€Å"labored breathing.† Here are some alternative words and expressions for belabor that may be clearer in some contexts: dwell on overdo overdramatize make too much of Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:How to Format a UK Business LetterTop 11 Writing Apps for iOS (iPhone and iPad)Advance vs. Advanced