I think my story turned out great. I had putten a lot of work into it, and it showed off. I still had a few things where I should have done a better job.
The characters and creativity of the story were really personal in my opinion. I could've described the character's personality and feelings more.
I included some details using the 5 senses, but I think that this was my biggest weakness. I got so caught with the story, that I forgot to write more about details and senses.
On narration and description I also did a good job. I also included a lot of feelings, but I didn't really explained that why did the character have these feelings. I think that I could do a better job with that the next time.
Clarity and correctness are really good and I believe that I didn't have much grammatical errors.
The length of my story fulfilled the required length, and went over it. The requirement was 1900 words, and I had nearly 3000 words.
I hope that I will get a good grade, but I know that I do have these things which lowers my grade.

I sent email to Wendy Swift on wednesday, that I would come tomorrow after school. She replied that it was okay. So I went to the writing center the next day. It was located in the upstairs of Humanities. There was one big room, and two smaller offices. In the big room, there was on table with chairs around it and behind the table, there was a sofa. Wendy Swift was in her office with two other students and one student sitting at the table waiting for her turn. She said that she was busy too busy right now and she told me to come back tomorrow on my free period. When I went there the next day, she had one other student whom she was reading a book with. She told her to continue reading by herself, and she came to help me. She wrote my name on a piece of paper. Then we sat down at the table and started reading my story right away from my ipad. I was reading it out loud and she was listening and reading it from my ipad at the same time. After we read the story, she told me that it was really good and grammatically correct. One thing that she noticed that I had written wrong, was that I had written Thanksgiving with a lowercase t. After that we started to discuss the actual story. She helped me in a few aspects, like asking why did something happen or why was my main character thinking that way. For example, when I wrote that my main character would like to know Sookan better, Wendy Swift told me to tell more about that why would she like to know Sookan better. She also helped me by suggesting that I should include more specific examples from the book Gathering of Pearls. In one chapter, I told that my main character told her story to Marci while eating breakfast, Wendy Swift told me to write more about my characters story and about her history. After that she promised to send an email to my English teacher, Jennifer Guarino, that I came there. The visit to the writing center took about five minutes. It was good to get some feedback on my story and to hear that what someone else thinks about it. Wendy Swift was really kind person I was glad to meet her.

Comma splice
This is when you connect two independent sentences with a comma.
    I am the king of the world, nothing can hurt me.

Run-on sentence
This is when you connect two independent sentences without a comma or conjunction.
    I am the king of the world nothing can hurt me.

Sentence fragment
This doesn’t have even one independent sentence.
    All the kids in this school, between 2pm and 5pm.

Independent clause
A Sentence that can stand by itself. It contains at least one verb and one subject.
    I was eating.

Dependent clause
This provides additional information to a independent clause, but it can’t stand alone.
    when it was lunch time.

Veeti Heikkinen
English
Jennifer Guarino
6.12.2015



Next week I will start my college. I'm going to Finch College, an all-girls Catholic school. It is located in New York, which is about two hours away from my home. I've been going to the local schools for all my life, and all my friends have lived nearby me. I don't know anyone from the school I am going to, and I don't know what to expect.
I arrived to the school one day after everyone else. When I arrived to the school, Sister Reed came to greet me. She told me everything that I had to know for the first couple of days, while she was taking me to my room. She told me to leave all my stuff in the room and hurry to the ceremony going on in the assembly hall. I left my stuff in my room and started heading towards the assembly hall.
When I came in the assembly hall, I was a little late, but the ceremony hasn't began yet. Everyone looked at me as I walked in. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know anyone there and nobody knew me. I didn't know where to sit, but then one of the girls told me to sit next to her. She seemed nice, but a little bit lonely. She asked my name and we started to get to know each other, before the assembly started. Her name was Marci.
After the assembly Lauren asked me to come to her room. I told her that I needed to unpack my stuff and get some sleep. I promised her that I'll see her tomorrow morning. So I got to my room and started to unpack my stuff and decorate my room, but I was so tired so soon I went to sleep.
    I woke up and went to the dining hall to have breakfast. The dining hall was huge and old fashioned. Marci saw me and waved to me. She was sitting alone in a round table, covered in a fancy white tablecloth. I got some cereals and went to sit with Marci. She asked about my past. After I briefly told my story and finished my breakfast, she insisted to come with me to my room.
    Together we finished unpacking and decorating my room. It was beautiful. Marci gave me a few flowers to put on my desk, that filled the room with a fresh odor. I had two posters on my wall. Marci showed me around the school. The campus was stunning. It was like a big garden that had constantly been taken care of, with castle like buildings.
    In no time, it was already night and we had to go to another ceremony. I sat with Marci again. In the middle of the ceremony, an asian girl walked in with a weird looking dress. She seemed very nervous and uncomfortable, just like me yesterday. Everyone stared her for a while, until one girl asked her to sit next to her.
    The first month went by. Much faster than I thought. I had a lot of homework to do each night, but still had time to spend time with my friends. Usually I spent time with Hannah and Isabella. Marci was still my good friends, but she had started to spend time with the Korean girl, whose name was Sookan. I didn’t know her much, but she seemed the kind of person that I would like to know better.
    Hannah and Isabella are both new to this school. They were more social and outgoing than Marci, which I liked. Hannah was tall and thin with blond hair. She was one of the most beautiful girl in our school. Isabella was also very pretty, she was kind of the leader of our group.
    I had 6 classes, so I had some free time besides school. Usually I had to do homework for about three hours a day, but sometimes even longer. Even though I had to study a lot, I didn’t think that it was too much for me. I still got to relax and spend time with my friends. The Korean girl, Sookan, has to spend all her time studying or doing scholarship work. I’m glad that that’s not me.
    In a few weeks, me and Hannah are going to Isabella’s house for a few days during the thanksgiving holiday. Also other people from this school and elsewhere. Her parents are away so we are she’s having a little party. I’m not such a party person myself, but I’m still excited to go. It seems that everyone else is going to drink alcohol, except me.
    It was almost Thanksgiving break. I was going home, after three nights at Isabella, and I was really excited to meet my family again after a long time. I have become even better friends with Hannah. She was very similar to me, so we had a lot to talk about.
    The last day was finally over. I packed my stuff for the thanksgiving holiday yesterday, so I was ready to go right away. We got a ride to Isabella’s house from her parents. Their house was in the middle of our school and my home. Isabella’s house was huge compared to mine. They had two water fountains on their front lawn. I was stunned.
    Isabella took me and Hannah upstairs where her room was. Then she showed us around the house, while her mom was making dinner for us. They had three floors and a lot of useless rooms made into libraries. Isabella had never told me that she was from a wealthy family.
    The dinner was ready. You could smell the delicious turkey already from upstairs. The food was pure luxury. Candles gave the final touch to the perfect setup. We never had this fancy food in my home. I was almost a little bit jealous for Isabella. After dinner, we went to Isabella’s room and soon to sleep.
    The next morning when we woke up, we made some breakfast for us. Isabella’s parents had already left, and soon other people would come. We cleaned up a little, and made the downstairs more suitable for a party. That didn’t take long, and soon the first guests started to arrive.
    The party was going on, and I tried to have a good time, but actually I was very uncomfortable being almost the only one who didn’t drink, and not knowing many people there. I had promised my parents that I wouldn’t drink alcohol when I’m underaged, and I wanted to keep that promise. Still the time went by fast and soon we went to sleep.
    The next morning, I was the first one who woke up. My parents were coming to pick me up in a few hours. I started to make breakfast for the three of us, and soon Hannah woke up and after that Isabella came down too. They both had a hangover while I was happy after a good night’s rest. After eating the breakfast and cleaning up a little, my parents came to get me.
    After spending a while at home with my parents, I went to meet some of my old friends. I was really glad to see them after a while, and to share my experience soon my new college. We had good time, and ate a traditional thanksgiving dinner with my parents, but soon it was time to get back to school. My parents drove me back again.
    The time between thanksgiving and christmas, I spent doing my schoolwork, which I had a lot.

Dear Diary, today me and my five friends drove to our summerhouse, the trip was awful. I was so exited before we left, even though we do this many times a year. When we were supposed to leave, one of my friend overslept so he was going to be late. We didn't let that bother us, but decided to leave already and meet him at the shop on the half way. After a few miles my friends motorcycle broke, and he hopped on my bike and we continued the trip still trying to be happy. After a while my friend, who over slept, called me and told us to wait. We waited for about ten minutes and he came. And once again we continued the trip. I was already getting a little anxious. We drove really fast on the wet and curvy roads, so we would catch up on our schedule. When we arrived to the shop, it was already getting dark. We twent to the shop to by food over the weekend, which took some time. After we were done with shopping, we had to stuff the food to our bags, which were already full. I was just getting more annoyed, but tried to keep the good spirit up. When we left the store, it was really dark and cold and wet, basic Finnish weather. You still could see something with your front lights, but after half an hour, we couldn't see anything. I was the first one driving with my friend on my bike. It was really scary to drive when you actually couldn't see the road. Some times it just disappeared in fromt of you and you didn't even know if it went right or left. After a long and scary trip, we arrived to the dirt road. That was even harder to drive with my street bike. Anyhow we managed to get to our summer house, we were all wet and covered in mud. We went to put the sauna on, and couple guys started making food. Even though the trip was awful, the feeling that we got when we arrived, rewarded the painful journey.

Over thanksgiving break I did a lot of things. Mostly I just met and spent time with my friends, and partied almost every night. The best thing over the brake was when me and my five friends drove with our motorcycles to our summerhouse and spent a few nights there. We went to sauna and just relaxed and talked together. When we were driving there, one of my friend broke hos bike and he had to come on my bike. It took some time so it was getting so dark that you couldn't even see the road, which was scary. It was also cold and raining, but it just made the arriving better. When we left after a couple days, we left early so we wouldn't have to drive in the dark, but one of my friends ran out of gasoline so we had to bring him more. After that I broke my front tire, so I had to drive with a broken tire in the wet and slippery roads. The trip wasn't a total succeed, but at least we'll remember it.