house - Cailey Qualls

      The house I call home is where I have grown up all my life. I love my house. When you walk in through the garage You step into the laundry room, then take a hallway. The hallway passes the kitchen and leads into the living room. If you get into the living room and take a left, and head up the stairs you will have entered my favorite room.
    My favorite room of the house is where all my family gathers at the end of the day and we just talk about things. We talk about each others day and everything else. I feel this room has brought me closer to my family. Some of my favorite memories in this room come from movie nights. Now that me and my brother have grown older we don't get to do movie nights as much. I love spending time with my family. I am so thankful that I still am able to live in this home. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. There are to many memories made in my house.

Tristan Smithee- My home

I personally have lived in several homes over my lifetime. My first "home" was an apartment in Jonesboro. I was only a baby so I do not remember it. My second would be from the time I was 3 until I was 8. That is where I lived the longest. This one was in Lake City. Even though I lived there the longest, it never felt like my home. We were hardly ever there due to my mo being sick, so we stayed with my grandma. From there we went to another apartment in Lake City, and then to my now home. I can truly say this is where I feel I am at home. It is located on a county road, known as 780. I view this as my home as I have made a ton of memories. The living room is where we spend most of our time, watching tv, (mainly football games) playing games or even just sitting around and talking. This room has several of my trophies and buckles hanging it in. It also has several deer mounts, ducks, and even a bobcat. Which my grandpa and I are very proud of, mainly because they are the last mounts we got with my mom. Our second favorite room would have to be the kitchen. Honestly, my grandma probably spends most of her time there. She is always cooking, rather it is for super, or our weekend gatherings with family. (When we are home) It is just a simple kitchen decorated in mainly farmhouse style things. We have our best talks in there. My room would be where I am the least. It is mainly decorated in buckles, pictures, and some saddles I have won. I am only in my room to do homework or to sleep. I feel what makes this place my home is not the house itself, it is the fact I have my horses just right up a hill. They are part of my family just as much as my grandparents and dad. I can also have my dogs and my grumpy old cat. I love them all. The barn is where I spend most of my time, surprising right? Anyway, it has fourteen stalls and a tack room. The stalls are cleaner than the tack room at the moment. My favorite place on the property is the arena. I do most of my thinking and making decisions in there. It is where I feel my mom the most, it is where she was closest to me. We had our best conversations, laughs, and cries in those rails. I will always feel this is my home. I feel I am safest here. The piece of property or even the house and barn do not make this my home, it is the memories and people I have here with me. This place will always be my home.

Ella Servadio -- My Old House

     My old house is in the middle of the country, surrounded by dirt roads and trees. We had about four acres of land. Our house was blonde in color with dark brown shutters. When you walk in the front door, you see the kitchen; it was bright yellow because my mom loves colorful walls. Next, you come to the living room, which mainly consisted of our deer mounts. You then walk down the hallway and to each side were our rooms and the bathroom. This house was much more than four walls and a roof for me. This is the house that holds all of my best and worst childhood memories.

     Many of the memories that I recall from this house happened in the living room. The living room is where my family always was. Whether it be playing board games, hosting get together, or simply sitting on the couches watching TV, we always found a way to have fun. One of my favorite memories is when we were doing challenges. My friend Jordan was at the house, and she somehow talked my dad into doing the chubby bunny challenge with us. He actually ended up winning; he held twenty of the big marshmallows in his mouth. I remember laughing about it for about ten minutes. I am not sure why this one memory stuck with me, but it did. 

     I really hate that I had to move from my childhood home, but in a way, I am glad I moved from it. Since I moved, I am able to appreciate the memories I made in that house even more. All of the good times, hard times, and sad times in that house on Tribbett Road will always have a special place with me.

Bryce Despain - My Residence

I live in a rural area, known as Lake City, Arkansas. My house is located on the west side of Lake City coming in from Jonesboro. As soon as you enter Lake City coming from Jonesboro, my street is the second one you pass and is on the left side right across from the school. I live on Cherry Street, and surprisingly unlike a lot of people, I have never moved once in my life. I guess I am pretty lucky that I haven't, mainly because I have never had to make any new friends or go to a new unknown place where I felt uncomfortable. Since I have never moved once in my life that also means that I have gone to the same school all throughout my life as well. When you go down Cherry Street my house is located a little more than halfway down the road. You will know what house is mine because of the huge brown shop that is in the back yard, it is hard to miss it. I'm not joking when I say it is hard to miss it because we are the only ones on my road with a huge brown shop in the back yard. My house isn't as big as most peoples houses, I would say it is a fairly normal size house, however, our front and back yard is quite huge. Anyways, when you go down my road you will see that we tend to have a lot of trees on our road, and they aren't any normal trees, they are mainly huge and tall ones because they have been there a long time. My house has around 7 trees in total, front and back yard included. We did have more at one point in my life, however, over time we had to either cut them down, or they were dead and just fell apart over a short period of time. My house means a lot to me because I have lived in it all of my life and because of that I have also made so many memories in it. I have made most of those memories outside around my house, like in the front and back yards, such as when I was a kid and played around. I'm not gonna go into detail about those memories, but let's just say I have made a lot of good ones. The good thing about those memories though is that I still have all of them with me and I haven't left any of them behind because I still live in the same house and I want to remember them forever. At this point, every memory that I have made or make in my house becomes a part of my life. 

My Favorite Teacher: Halee Mills

I don't believe I have a favorite teacher. I have thoroughly enjoyed having different teachers, but I have not liked ALL of them. I did, however, have an English teacher my junior year at Jonesboro High School that was more intelligent than I thought was possible. He is from northern England and is fluent in several languages. He imparted knowledge upon me that I will never be able to forget. His name is Keith Pringle and he met his wife while he was visiting Australia and got married in South America. He is very well versed and knows more than I think I ever will. He taught me many valuable lessons that I will never forget about life and literature and just anything, really. I loved his class even though he called me "elementary." I respected it. By the end of the year, I had one of the highest grades in the class and finished with all A's all year. It was the first time I ever had an AP class and I actually made it. I owe it to him that my English and Reading scores on my ACT are high. I appreciate everything he did to help me learn and grow. He taught me about speech and how to interpret important things in seemingly unimportant things. I loved his class, even though it was difficult sometimes. I guess I can say Mr. Pringle is my favorite teacher since I learned the most from him.

What's In A Name? - Vin Boyd

A name to me has meant a lot of trials and tribulation. It's been difficult getting over what I was named and how it has affected me. To be given a name that doesn't quite fit, when speaking it feels like mumbling through a mouthful of stones, it isn't the best feeling. Many people have preferred names that just fit them better than their full names, but mine has never felt like that. I've always felt like a nickname would be a semi-permanent fit to an everlasting problem.
When I first started struggling with my name and my identity, I used to think about parents or guardians not naming their children anything. To just be born into a family with no indication of a big part of your future. I thought it might be easier to learn what a name was for yourself later in life and find a name you thought suited you best.
Then I realized that people grow in and out of names. A person may let their name affect them to the extent of basing their personality around it. Why not just pull a Bird Box and grow up in the easy identification of what you are and not who?
I wouldn't have become Vin if I wasn't first Veronica. I felt like Vin would be an easy solution to my previous name because it started with the same initial and had enough differing qualities to only slightly resemble the other. I mostly wanted to make it easier for other people. That Vin and Veronica were similar enough.
Imagine my other name option. Before I realized I was falling apart in accordance with my self-identity, I thought Sam would be a good fit for me. It's short, gender-neutral, common, memorable while also being forgettable. I didn't want to stand out. I didn't want to make it hard on anyone.
I know I haven't followed the prompt quite to the 'T', but I think my struggles are real enough to put pen to paper. Er, fingers to keyboard to screen. To blog.

my favorite teacher- Anna Meurer

My favorite teacher of all time is my second grade teacher Mr. Cook. Not only was he good looking he was a good teacher. He wasn't just a good teacher, he was a great person all together. I feel like everyone has that one teacher in their lives that has made a difference. He did more than just make a difference in my life. 

He was the teacher that everyone hoped to have as their second grade year. He was always willing to help out in the classroom or out of the classroom. Looking back I don't feel like everyone valued his teaching as much as we should've. He would make any boring lesson the funnest thing that you would learn about. He always came to the classroom with a positive attitude and he saw the best in everyday. I think that, that rubbed off on all of his students. He was one of my biggest role models that year. He still is one of my biggest role models. I don't think that I would be as far in school today if it wasn't for him.