Who can take a sunrise and sprinkle it with dew? Why, the Candy Man can. And, who's the candy man? Willy Wonka, of course. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is an adaption from a Roald Dahl novel, and it follows the story of Charlie Bucket, a poor boy that lives with his mother and four grandparents. The action also revolves around Willy Wonka, an eccentric candy man that has sent out five golden tickets inside his chocolate bars, which were invitations to go to his chocolate factory--which nobody knows how it operates, since no one goes in or out--and get a lifetime supply of chocolate. The lucky winners were: Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde, Veruca Salt, Mike Teavee and a Paraguayan millionaire. Charlie's hopes of going to the factory were taken away, but thanks to a twist of fate, the last ticket happened to be a fake. While that news spread, Charlie went to buy a Wonka bar with some money he found in the street. When he opens it, he finds the golden ticket! The next day, Charlie and his Grandpa Joe go to the factory, where they meet Wonka, his green-haired and orange-skinned helpers, the Oompa-Loompas and his many wonderful and unusual inventions. But, something weird is happening inside the factory. Everybody entered one way and left in a completely different way. Some were juiced and some were bad eggs, and in the end only one kid will be left, but will he get the prize?

This movie is more than candy, bright colors, music and fantasy. There's also a lot of social criticism; this is no ordinary kid's movie. If you pay attention to the events that lead up to the tour of the factory--meaning the mayhem the golden tickets caused--you'll find that behind the jokes and a veil of chocolate and candy, it's saying a lot about the way our society works. This critique is not shown through the main characters--those characters have other things to teach us--so it can be easily missed. In other words, forget about the candy and pay attention to what they're saying. 

The movie also has different layers. There's sarcasm, irony and social criticism, but there are also lessons for the kids. It teaches them--although I think it's for both the young and the old--about values, and it teaches kids that dreams can come true. All in all, it's a well-rounded movie that deserves to be seen. So, will you ride the river of chocolate or stay behind the closed gates of the mysterious factory? I promise, you don't need to have a golden ticket to see it.

          In the story Salvation, Langston Hughes narrates the moment when he was “saved”. From the moment I saw where this was headed, I felt bad for him because he was put in an uncomfortable situation, for no reason at all. Children don’t have the life experience or the knowledge to decide whether or not they want to have Jesus in their lives. They just do it because that's what they think it's expected from them. The fact that Langston thought Jesus would materialize in front of him and would have led him to the altar is proof enough to say that he's too young to be going through this. Also, religion is not something you push unto someone because instead of accepting, they’ll just be turned off by it. Having attended a private Christian academy for twelve years of my life, it affects how I view this situation, but not because they were forcing the religion down our throats. In my school, they did have revivals and other events where they blessed the students. However, unlike the revival that’s narrated in the story, it wasn’t forced; they’d say we could participate, if we wanted to. So, in the end, some people attended and others had an extra-long lunch break. Obviously, not every teacher saw this the same way, and those would act just like the people Langston describes in his story.  But, there were Christian Education teachers that said: “I can’t make you a Christian. All I can do is teach you God’s word, show you the way, and let you choose. It’s your life, not mine.” These were the teachers that taught me how to be a real Christian and what Christianity is all about.
          In the story, Langston felt pressured to be saved, being the only lamb left, and the description of this makes you feel it too.  Can you imagine how it felt having all those people looking at you, your aunt crying and thinking you must be cursed, while you are just a little kid that doesn’t understand what’s going on around him? What I find very interesting is his debate about whether or not he should lie. If he lied, all the staring and crying would end. If he didn't, he could still be there. Lying is a tempting choice; today I probably wouldn't have lied, but if I was twelve, just like Langston was, then I'd lie. It wouldn't be the smartest choice, but feeling that pressure in church to accept Jesus and waiting for Him to come must have been unbearable. Langston's narration puts the reader in his own shoes. He makes us relate to him, by showing us the way things happened. Alongside with him, we feel like the outcast lamb that was waiting for Jesus to come. He achieves all of this by letting us into his thoughts every step of the way. Another effective method can be found in the passage, when the church rejoices because Langston was saved. It's effective because of the contrast between Langston's guilt and their happiness because he had come to Jesus. Also, because the reader can already sense how disappointed Langston is about himself and his experience, which is later confirmed.
          Hughes is not the only author that has narrated a childhood experience, and he probably won’t be the last either. Sandra Cisneros does the same in her story Eleven. Other than the obvious difference that one is told by a boy and the other one is told by a girl, the authors use different narration techniques. For example, in Eleven, the moment is told from Rachel’s eleven year old point of view, which also provides a sense of immediacy. However, Salvation is told from Langston’s point of view, as an adult not the twelve-year-old kid he was back then.  Another difference is that in Eleven the main character is a fictional one, while in Salvation it’s the author himself.  They’re similar in that they’re both successful in transporting the reader to that classroom or church pew and make them feel empathetic towards the main character.

When people think about New York City, they usually think about the skycrappers or the fastpaced way of living its citizens seem to have. Last April, by some act of fate, I got to go to New York for a weekend. I went with my dad, and we stayed in the middle of Times Square. Yet, this picture was taken in Central Park. I distinticly remember the moment, when I walked near the baseball parks, took out my phone and took the picture. I remember the icy wind, hitting my face, and the way my hands felt numb sometimes. It's funny to think that the picture has these brilliant pops of white in the flowers and sunlight peeking through the branches of the trees, when in reality that weekend the temperature was in the low fifties and windy. In that moment, it was my oasis, even if the picture itself can't shake the stigma of the concrete jungle.

After I took the picture, I ended up sitting on the rock that's in the photo. Everything that surrounded me was mesmerazing. I was simply enchanted. Even though, it was one space, at one time. This picture represents those whole three days of  laughing my socks off, while climbing the business ladder in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, falling in love with Once, walking alone the streets of New York, and just letting the city take me in.

I see this picture multiple times a day, since it is my phone's wallpaper. Yet, it ended up there because of everything that it represents. It was more than New York. It was more than a moment. It's knowing that there's always something beautiful to look at, just like there's always a silver lining, no matter where you are. It was a great weekend, and this picture keeps it in the forefront of my mind.

     In simple terms, Joan Didion writes because she wants to know herself, but it’s more than that. She wants to understand why she’s thinking about or why she can recall the butter in City of San Francisco’s dining car. Like she says throughout this essay, if she had the answers to her every thought and question, she wouldn’t have to write.Her revelations did surprise me for two reasons. First, I didn't think that anyone else would write because of images that come to you, from your day to day life, specially moments that may seem mundane or unmemorable. Yet, those are moments that are at the root of her novels. Second, because we believe that writers have these master plans that they follow word by word, yet she admits to having no notion of where the story was headed, when she started writing each of her novels. She also says she's a writer because she's not an abstract thinker. I think she means that, when she's writing she's not thinking about the layers of possible meanings it will have; she just writes, and the meaning is an afterthought.
        The structure of this essay seems to be a timeline about the process of her writing. It starts with her college years at Berkley, and it moves on to the moments, when she started writing her novels Play It As It Lays and A Book of Common Prayer, respectively. Through this structure, the reader can see the evolution of her ideas from distractions that detracted from her study time to images that told a story. This can be seen by the way she says: "I would try to read linguisitc theory and would find myself wondering instead if the lights were on in the bevatron up the hill." Then, it transforms into this: "I recall having a number of pictures in my mind when I began the novel I just finished, A Book of Common Prayer. As a matter of fact one of these pictures was of that bevatron I mentioned, although [it] would be hard to tell you a story in which nuclear energy figured. Another was a newspaper photograph of a hijacked 707 burning on the desert in the Middle East. Another was the night view from a room in which I once spent a week with paratyphoid, a hotel room on the Colombian coast." This is effective because it gives us a glimpse into her mind and her thought process, and it also seems. Another of her techniques is the use of colloquial vocabulary, since this brings her and her readers closer.
          In the end, writing is a selfish act. The writer may or may not be selfish, but the act of writing is because of all the time you have to spend with yourself. You have to dive into your own mind, untangle your thoughts and continue talking to yourself about your ideas, until what you are writing is finished, and, by that time, you are tired of yourself.

It all started in a baseball game. It was at the time, when my dad was teaching me how to play, so I was very excited to be rooting for my fifth grade classroom to win this one. Since I can remember, I have been accident prone, so it didn't come as a surprise, when I twisted my ankle. It hurt a little, but since it had happened many times before, I didn't pay much attention to it. Mr. Cumba, the teacher who refereed all the games, said that was the last inning because the bell was about to ring. The game finished, and I think we won, but I don't remember because of what happened next. My best friend, Diana, and I started to walk towards our homeroom. But, because it hurt to put my foot on the floor, she offered to help me. While we were going up the ramp, a bunch of fourth graders ran into us. Imagine a collision of almost ten fourth graders running towards us, who were walking slower than a turtle. Next thing I know, I was on the floor, and Diana had landed on my already sprained ankle.

If it hurt to walk before, now I was holding back screams of pain. I tried to walk to my homeroom, but Diana said to go to her mom's classroom instead, who was our Spanish teacher. We got there, and she said I had to go to the infirmary because it was already swollen. She gave me a piggyback ride to the infirmary, where I waited for my dad to come pick me up. While I waited, the nurse was trying and failing to take off my sneaker, and the secretary was filling out the insurance papers I had to take with me. Then, everything became a jumbled blur of my dad picking me up, going to the ER, getting X-rays and finally ending up with a cast and a cast shoe.

It was becoming quite the experience. I remember watching Tru Confessions, a Disney Channel Original Movie, wearing only one shoe, and learning how to fend for myself and my broken ankle. In school, everyone was glad to help me carrying my books or getting lunch. Also, another friend of mine had broken her leg, around the same time I broke my ankle. Coralys and I said we were the broken twins, since she wore her cast on her left leg and I wore it on my right leg. Why is any of this important to me? Well, because beyond the pain, the fear and feeling like an invalid, I got to see the people who truly cared about me. It was a definite eye-opener to see these people going out of their way to make me feel better. For all of that and more, I'll be grateful forever. My tenth year of life was definitely a memorable one, and this was only a small part of it.

I remember reading the short story Eleven by Sandra Cisneros, when I was in the seventh grade for my English class, and after many years coming and going, I still reacted the same way. I related to Rachel, who's my favorite character, because I know how it feels to want to say something so much that words fall short. Her inner crisis about being eleven, but not feeling eleven is something I think everybody goes through, including me. In short, I see a part of myself in her. The moment when you feel the most empathy towards her situation is when Mrs. Price makes her put on the sweater. Instead of disliking Sylvia or Phyllis, Mrs. Price is my least favorite character because she doesn't even ask Rachel if the sweater is hers; she just assumes it is because Sylvia said so. I understand she was trying to look in control of the situation, by even going to extent of saying that she had seen Rachel wear it. In the end, she came out looking like a fool because Phyllis remembered it was hers, after everything Rachel was put through.
This personal narrative succeeds, in what it sets out to do, which is put the reader in Rachel's shoes. Cisneros explains her point of view through the description, for example, the one of Rachel wanting to be a hundred and two. This makes the character of Rachel a relatable character, since we all have been eleven, at some point. Also, the vocabulary is simple. It's not a mature Rachel telling someone what happened to her on her eleventh birthday, instead it is eleven year old Rachel telling what happened, which also gives a sense of immediacy to the story. The story, staying true to the fact that it's being told by an eleven-year-old, is a bit quirky, at times. For example, when she says that growing up is kind of like an onion because it's not something you usually think of, unless you are Shrek.