Lyla’s Creative Writing

Throughout my time in middle school so far, I have made many wonderful memories, but today I’ll share three. My first memory was attending my first school dance in 6th grade. I loved this memory because I had never been to a school dance before. It was just so weird, though so cool, that I got to hang out with my friends, eat pizza, and dance to incredibly nostalgic music. I’ll never forget walking to my mom’s car on the lonely sidewalk, since there was barely kids walking that way at the time, and ranting to her about all the fun I had just had at my first school dance. My second favorite memory happened this year, in seventh grade, in PE when we had to run the mile. Now, I’m a perfectionist, so ever since I started middle school I’ve always tried to improve my mile time as much as I could. Although I wasn’t getting much improvement in 6th grade, so one of my seventh grade goals was to get from a mile time anywhere in the eight minute mark to a mile time anywhere in the seventh minute mark. I had so much hope that I began running around the block in my neighborhood (until I got to one mile), and timed myself, just so I could be a little more sure that I could achieve my goal. One day, it happened. We were running the mile that day, and everyone (including me) was a little annoyed, but I knew that I was ready. When we started, I started off with a jog just so I wouldn’t tire my self out, and I made sure to focus on my breathing the whole time. I pushed myself to not stop, and when I finally crossed the finish line, I noticed my time was seven minutes and forty-five seconds. I had done it. My third favorite memory was volunteering to help out at the volleyball tournament. My job was to keep score of the game, which I was pretty nervous about because I had very little knowledge of volleyball. Although it was actually fun because I got to skip a whole day of school, I just sat at a table and waited for the referee to tell me who scored a point, and I got to keep score with another person so I got to talk with them also. Hopefully I will continue to make more incredible memories here at my middle school.

For my sixth week of baking/recreating Disney desserts, I baked round two of the Disney movie Princes and the Frog’s beignets. Round two was by far easier than round one, since I already had the dough made, and I wasn’t going into this baking process completely blind and without the experience of frying food. Obviously the hardest struggle was frying the beignet because even though I had done this once before, I’m always going to get nervous when dealing with hot oil. The second struggle was the dough was still a bit sticky, so that’s always annoying. My third and final struggle was I didn’t know what size to cut the dough into for frying, so I had my mentor (my dad) help me get back onto the right track, and he also helped me with the whole frying process. By far the easiest achievement was sprinkling a bit of powdered sugar on top, and along with drizzling some honey atop the beignet. Finally the best achievement was eating the beignet, and it actually tasting good, fluffy, and like a beignet should (not still doughy/raw on the inside). Overall I’d say this recipe was the most exciting to make because I got to fry food for the first time, I felt like I was one of those donut makers, and it was of course the tastiest out of them all. My second favorite was probably Brave’s iced rolls, and third was Wreck it Ralph’s “You’re My Hero” sugar cookies. I leave off on this project with accomplishing all of my recipes.

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Looking at each of these two illustrations of the two boys made me notice a couple things. First and foremost, I noticed the caption, “Happiness and satisfaction in life depends on how much is considered enough.” This caption is telling me that how you are raised depends how how easily you are able to be grateful/satisfied. I say this because if you are given tons of things, overtime you lose to see the value in the gifts you are being given, turning you less and less grateful/satisfied for them every time. Although if you are given one gift every once in a while, then you will find it very special, making you more thankful/satisfied. The second thing I’m noticing is that since the picture on the left is showing a boy having a tantrum even though he has been gifted many things, it’s telling me that this boy is spoiled, ungrateful, and unsatisfied. Making me assume that this boy has been given lots of things throughout his young life, causing him to not see the value in being given all of the well-kept gifts. Whereas the boy on the right is showing that he is a grateful, satisfied, and happy child, since in the photo he is happily playing with, probably the only toy that he is been given that day, a wooden toy car. Making me assume that he doesn’t have a lot, so when he is given a present that is not even from a toy store, he is still thankful and happy.

For week five of my twenty percent project, baking and recreating Disney movie desserts, I baked round one of the yummy honey-powdered sugar beignets from the Disney movie, Princess and the Frog. Just a reminder, when I say round one, I mean my first time at trying to bake this recipe. The dough was fairly easy to make since there was very minimal ingredients to be dealt with (specifically only sugar, flour, salt, and active dry yeast as the dry ingredients, along with milk, butter, water, egg, and vanilla extract as the wet ingredients) though it was very sticky, which could always be a hassle to deal with. I’m pretty sure that the hardest part (surprisingly) was rolling the dough to about a 1/4 inch thick, and cutting the dough into tiny rectangles. This is because, at first, the dough wouldn’t flatten when I rolled it, and just kept getting stuck to anything it was laid against, so I had to sprinkle some flour down. Secondly, I didn’t know how thick 1/4 inch was, so I had to have my mentor (my dad) to help me to get back onto the right track. Not only did he help me with rolling the dough, but he also helped me cut the dough into tiny rectangles. The part where I got nervous was definitely the idea of frying a food because one; I’ve never fried anything (using oil) before, and two; I’ve had a pretty ugly past when it came to making bread. Although, with the help of my mentor (my dad), the frying job was a pretty easy achievement. Out of the three beignets we made, one of them was a little doughy/raw on the inside, so we didn’t use that one. Finally, sprinkling powdered sugar, and drizzling some honey atop the beignets was the overall easiest part of the whole baking process.

Week four of recreating Disney desserts consisted of me doing a round two of baking Disney’s Brave’s iced rolls. Round two basically means, I take my newly-learned knowledge from the experience of baking the dessert the first time, and try to improve my baking of the dessert the second time. Which will hopefully better replicate the original dessert from the movie. This time was definitely easer since instead of actually making the dough for a second time, I just saved some leftover dough from round one. Even though I did this, the dough was still sticky, which was a little bit of a struggle for me to deal with. A mistake that I made in round one, that I improved on/didn’t do in round two, was putting too much egg wash over my dough rolls before putting them in the oven. This was a mistake because putting egg wash on your dough will make your dough appear darker after coming out of the oven. In the movie, the original dessert had a lighter appearing roll, whereas I had a darker appearing roll, so I definitely wanted to try to put less egg wash on my dough rolls this time, in round two. I’d say everything else, including weighing the dough rolls and shaping the dough rolls, were a pretty easy accomplishment. Although the idea of icing the roll was pretty nerve-racking, in the sense that I wanted this icing job to appear “perfect”, so I was definitely nervous. In spite of the fact that when I was actually icing the roll, I realized that this was an easy accomplishment, and of course placing the cherry on top was the overall easiest part of the whole process.

There are many examples to describe what a good neighbor is, but today I will write three examples. Just to be clear, when I say neighbor, I mean house neighbors, but there are many other forms of neighbors. One is, be reasonable with your volume levels. Of course you wouldn’t want your neighbor to be making the loudest noise as possible when your trying to do what your doing, so a good neighbor would keep a reasonable volume as much as they are able to. Secondly, a good neighbor would notify your if there is a neighborhood emergency (if they know about it first). For example, if it’s the middle of the night, your sleeping, and there happens to be a gas leak, a fire, or something that could put everyone nearby in danger, a good neighbor would come over to your house and notify you (if they know about it before you). Finally, if a neighbor damages your property in any way, they will fix it. To be more specific, if a neighbor breaks your window, they are obligated to fix it, or if your neighbor’s pet poops on your lawn, they should pick it up. Remember to be a good neighbor by using these three reasons, and more.

For the month of April, I chose to read the book The Lost. The Lost is a 282 page, teen psychological thriller written by Natasha Preston. This story takes place in a small, lakeside town called Mauvetown located in Ohio. This is the place is where we meet two sixteen year old best friends; Piper and Hazel. It is only June, yet eleven teenagers have disappeared from their small town, just this year. The police are declaring them runaways, but Piper and Hazel, the two who love to watch every true-crime, horror, mystery, and rom-com movie/tv show there ever was (together), suspect that something more sinister is going on. To ease their suspicions, they start to investigate. Unknowingly, their investigations lead them right to the sources of the missing teens, and then suddenly they’ve found themselves trapped in a huge, horror building in the middle of a privately-owned forest. If that’s not surprising enough, what Piper and Hazel find in an apartment-looking room is bitter-sweet. They discover four of the missing teens: Theo, Kevin, Priya, and Lucie (this would be bitter-sweet because although they have been kidnapped and held in a torture building, at least they found what they were investigating; the missing teens, some at least)! They soon find out from Theo, that this building isn’t just to hold them captive, but it’s designed to torture them. Out into a corridor, (that they can only access if they are individually called over the loud speakers/cameras that are sprinkled throughout their room, by one of the captors) there are six rooms lining the hall, rooms zero through five. They are all rooms that each have different ways a person can be tortured: room one is sound, room two is temperature, room three is light, room four is sleep deprivation, room five is water, and the worst of all, room zero where you and another opponent are forced to fight to the death. Listening to this, Hazel has lost her mind, yet Piper is trying to keep a level head, these captors aren’t going to get a show out of her. Being in those rooms, means you have to be strong and fight, or else it means you will be lost forever. Turns out, this building used to be a hospital, and hospitals have exits, right? This is what Piper thinks, yet everyone is skeptical because it seems as if in this building you are either a killer, or going to be killed. Is this it? Is this how they all die, or will the lost teens all make it out of this building alive. Or will they die trying?

I one-thousand percent recommend this book, it was so good in fact, that this book might be one of the most exciting books that I’ve read in a long time. There are characters that are actually likable, and not dumb (including the main character, which is sometimes rare to see in a horror/thriller book/movie). This book includes so many genres/topics tied into one; friendship, psychological thriller, young adult/teen, suspense, crushes/love, and survival. Having so many topics/genres touched upon in this book just makes it that much more interesting. Although this book is fairly long, the chapters are pretty short (the most is probably six pages), and shorter chapters are better because it gives you a sense of achievement when you make it to the next chapter, along with making the book seem to go by faster. Whilst wondering if the teens will make it out of the building alive, you are also suspecting each and every character of ill intentions along the way, keeping you from getting bored. You start to to think of many possible ways that this book could end that you won’t want to put the book down. Trust me, this book takes you on a whirlwind of emotions, and you will love every second of it.

My favorite character by far is Piper because she is smart, caring, and loyal. One quote that portrays Piper being smart is from page forty-six, “I straighten my back and walk to the room with my head held high. They will not get the better of me. On the outside, they will see me as calm. On the inside, I’m hit by a wave of nausea.” This shows Piper pulling one of her smart moves because the captors are only torturing the teens for the enjoyment of seeing them in pain, but if Piper puts on a straight face, showing no emotion, then they will get no entertainment out of torturing her. Resulting in Piper getting to hurt them in a type of way, and/or maybe they will stop or lessen the amount of times they send her to a torture room.

My overall favorite quote of this book is from page one hundred ninety-nine, “Priya and Hazel clean up. Hazel us beginning to take on a role similar to Priya. Planning escapes isn’t their strong suit, but they are doing what they can. I’ve taken on more of a Theo-style role, being strong, coming up with ideas, volunteering for things I don’t want to do. It’s what I need to do to get through. I have to be working toward escape or I’ll just be accepting that this is our life forever.” This is my favorite quote because it shows how bitter-sweet (more bitter than sweet though) their situation really is. I say bitter because it just shows how evil the captors are by making them all act as one big “family” who are happy to be there, take on different roles of the home, and pretend that they aren’t being tortured in many different horrible ways. It’s crazy that they are forced to make-do however they can whilst being put in a terrifying situation. I say sweet because as bad as their situation is, at least they all have each other, and can pretend, at least just for a second, that they aren’t being held from their families, but this is their happy normal.

For week three of my 20% project, I started a new recipe, and tried my best at baking the iced rolls from the Disney movie Brave. I decided to half the recipe since it called for a lot (ex: eight eggs), yet even with halving it I still got seventeen iced rolls. My earliest struggle was kind of getting overwhelmed with how much steps/ingredients there was included in this recipe, but with the help of a video guiding me on how to bake it and my mom (mentor), the process of making the dough seemed easier. My easiest/biggest achievement was definitely weighing and rolling the bread rolls because all I had to do was use a bench scraper to gather a piece of the dough, weigh it on a scale, make sure its weight was two ounces (if it was not, add or take away some), then flatten your dough piece out, fold in all the corners into the middle, roll it into a ball, and finally place it on a baking sheet (folded side down). My two other struggles were icing the bread rolls because in the past my icing skills have not turned out so well, and baking the bread because my experience with baking bread has not gone so well in the past. Even though I had struggles with these things in the past, I still overcame them, tried my best, and they both came out pretty good. A mistake that I have learned to not do for round two of this baking project is, don’t apply too much egg wash to you bread rolls before baking them because if you do, like I did, the bread rolls will come out to look more burnt then in the movie(making them less comparable). I leave off on this project with accomplishing round one of one of my three recipes, and will start back up again when I use my now learned knowledge to bake round two, next weekend.

For week two of my 20% project, baking/recreating three Disney movie desserts, I decided to do a round two to baking Wreck It Ralph’s “Your My Hero” sugar cookies. My goal for week two was to improve my frosting skills when trying to replicate the cookies from the movie. Using an unfrosted, already-made sugar cookie (from week one), I’d say the easiest step to accomplish, when frosting the cookie, was icing the border around it. Although, filling in the cookie with the blue icing, and especially writing the words onto the cookie were my ultimate struggles for week two. To be more specific of my baking experience, it took me three cookies until I finally perfected it as best as I could. The first cookie I tried improving on was no good because the blue frosting covering most of it was choppy and not smooth, and the words amidst the cookie were so poorly written to the point where you couldn’t read anything. This was very frustrating, so I asked one of my mentors (my dad) to fill me in on some ways to improve my frosting skills, and he suggested placing the frosting spatula in warm water, and lightly going over the layer of blue frosting with the spatula to smooth it out. This information definitely lead me on the right track for my next cookie. Although the second cookie didn’t go as well either, when I tried the hack that my mentor taught me, I unknowingly tried to ice the letters on top of the warm layer of frosting without letting it cool down first. This resulted in the words basically melting into the cookie, and once again becoming unreadable. Getting more frustrated, I tried working my magic on a third cookie, and taking all my learned mistakes and knowledge to it. This time I frosted the blue layer of frosting before lining the outside of the cookie with the border (this way it was easier to smooth out the blue frosting without having to stay inside a border, which really helped) after that I bordered the cookie, (after waiting a few minutes to let the frosting cool and dry) I iced the letter as best/clearly as i could, and finally put some sprinkles in the three “corners” of the heart. The next step into achieving my overall 20% project goal is completing round one of one of my other two recipes (including planning, baking, and improving).

If I could invite any five people to a dinner with me, I would choose professional baker Rosanna Pansino, my uncle Matt, my mom, my dad, and my brother. I would love to have Rosanna Pansino at my dinner because she is super sweet, seems to be very fun to talk to, and hopefully would give me tips on how to become a better baker. Secondly, I chose my uncle Matt to be present at this dinner because, since he passed away in 2017, I would want to talk to him and basically catch him up on what he’s been missing since he’s been gone, and before he passed, I didn’t really get to spend time with him, so I think it would be cool to have a conversation with him one last time. My parents (my mom and dad) would be there too because they are very very very special to me, and I’m sure they would love to also catch up with Matt. Finally I chose my younger brother because he is one of my best friends, and he is very supportive of me.