XPI Student Showcase
Welcome to Xpress Plugged In, our new online gallery of student expressions. Please follow the submission instructions CAREFULLY. New work will be posted every Monday.
-- Nancy Green, editor of XPI
Selections for the Week of 1/25/2010
Self-portrait, digital painting
Paris Shulmister, ninth grade, Northeast High School, St. Petersburg
Safety Harbor Middle School
The Girl in the Back
As I interviewed the eighth-grade girl sitting across from me, I could sense that she was a little uneasy about the topic: her school life. To keep the story fair, the girl I interviewed shall remain nameless.
The girl explained to me that she was good at school, got straight A's her entire life, and she hoped that she would be accepted into a great university. When I asked her about her social life, she suddenly slumped down into her chair and avoided my eyes.
After 10 minutes of silence, she sat up, looked at me with a serious face and began to tell me what really happens when the school bell rings.
She told me that she feels self-conscious and depressed when she walks by boys in the hallway because she doesn't think she's pretty or thin. When in fact she is very pretty and can't afford to lose any more weight.
A couple of days ago, her crush found out that she liked him, and now he teases her and laughs when she walks by. She explained to me that now all of his friends tease her and make faces when she's at her locker or walking the halls. She said that she has skipped lunch three times to escape the laughter. She escapes to the library where she can lose her problems in books.
She said that the teasing has died down a little, but she still hears giggles in the hallway. Her face was full of sorrow and regret as she finished the story. It made me feel like crying for her or talking to the kids who were making fun of her to let them know that they were acting like jerks, and that they couldn't even imagine what they put this girl through.
As I finished interviewing the girl sitting across from me, it seemed like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders; when she walked away from the table, I could have sworn that her head was held 10 times higher than when she walked into the room.
Amanda Golden, eighth grade
Pattern Painting, paint and black marker
Meagan Philbin, eighth grade, Joseph L. Carwise Middle School, Palm Harbor
St. Paul's School,
Clearwater
Txtin
"Hey! Wazzup?"
"Nm. I just got home from skool. Hbu?"
"Doing hw. Blech!"
"Ugh! I hav soooooo much to do tonite! It's ridiculous!"
"Ya me 2. Good luck with urz. I gtg 2 do mine. Ttyl. C ya!"
Txtin is the reason y kids wanna get fones
Not callin, but txtin
U cn talk 2 a person without c ing their face
U cn b talkin to one person with ur fingers
While talkin 2 another person with ur mouth at the same time
It's so easy
But u cud b drivin a car
Or a train
When ur talkin 2 the people
And u cud cause an accident tht cud take many lives
Altho, txtin cn be convenient if u need 2 ask the person abt hw
But since u dnt c their face
Or hear their voice
U dnt no if it's really them
And u mite txt them a secret tht dsnt really go 2 tht person
U cn mayb tell if a person is truly themselves if u no the way they txt or if u hear them talk
Otherwise u cnt tell
What if the person's older bro took their fone?
What if their parents r doing a fone check?
As ur thinking this
The person ur txtin mite b thinkin it 2
R they sure it's u on the other end?
Delaney Abood, seventh grade
Cherry Bay Love, digital painting
Gabrielle Cudlipp, ninth grade, H.B. Plant High School, Tampa