TYPES OF ESSAY

(A Requirement in Reading and

Writing Skills)

SY 2018 – 2019, First Semester

Submitted by:

CLAUDE CHARLES B. KIERULF

XI – HEISENBERG

Submitted to:

MRS. IRISH O. CURILAN

Name: Claude Charles B. Kierulf Year and Section: XI-
Heisenberg

Pattern of Development: NARRATION

Against the Flow

Humans, as a species, have grown to become one of the

most successful living organisms to traverse the Earth. Our
limitations which are there to bind us to the ground is not
enough to shatter our ambitions of grandeur and our ever-
curious minds. Time and time again, we have overcome the
various challenges brought upon us by mother nature. We didn’t
do it alone, but we did it with the aid of our united goals
and combined talents. We thrive by helping each other because
we’re a social species. We long for social interaction – to
share our souls, our bare selves, our minds with others in
the search for the missing piece that makes us whole. However,
there are also actual human beings who crave for solitary
equilibrium. There’s nothing wrong with these people – they
just do things differently. We tend to stay in our own world
where we know we’re safe, where we can micro-manage everything
in our vicinity. Yes, I love being alone. I don’t dislike
social interaction – I just prefer to be alone. I found that
it was easier for me that way ever since I entered grade
school.

An average first grader, from my experience, would be

a cheerful child whose youth offers the sweet bliss of
ignorance. An elementary student is a child whose world is
his parents and the time he spends playing with friends out
in the scorching, unforgiving rays of the sun. That was not
the case with me. I was sickly and asthmatic when I was in
grade school. I’ve never played outside in the sun with other
kids. All I ever did was coop myself up in the house reading
books all day long devoured in my own world. I never thought
of anything else back then, as all children do, and ultimately
ignored the imminent repercussions my reclusion would do to
my perspective. The problem with grade schoolers is that
they’re too young and that they’re still learning to handle
others. Some form relationships quick, others struggle for a
bit until they eventually form a good bond. In my case, I was
at the bitter end of the spectrum of the latter. It was hard
to make friends when all I would ever talk about was how the
clouds form from condensing water vapor and how the
constellations would differ from season to season and not
talk about how the hero beat up the villain in that one TV
show last night. I had no idea what the other kids thought of
me at that time but now, I can make a few guesses. Judging by
the way their reproaching glances and averting eyes found
mine, it was easy to guess.

Fast-forward to sixth grade, I was assigned to a new

classroom with new faces and a fresh start. I recall thinking
to myself how this was a good chance for me to create strong
bonds. I’d grabbed that opportunity at that time. First, I
turned to my neighbor and introduced myself. At the moment,
all I ever hoped for was that I’d never have to sit with
hunched shoulders at the back of the class. What happened
next, however, still haunts me to this day. A second passes
by, and another, and another, and then a second turns into
thirty seconds and I was already feeling bad about trying. It
was horrible. Rumors about me being a weirdo have already
entered the room. I tried approaching other kids but to no
avail. Six years ago, had I not been used to being alone, I
would have been devastated. On that day, however, I felt
nothing. I felt numb. A semester passes by, and I’ve already
blended in the background. I read books on our self-study
sessions, and played video games on our breaks. It wasn’t
what I was hoping for, but at least I didn’t have to face the
reality that the kids there were all fakes, carried by the
tide of false premise. I know that most of the kids there are
good deep inside, they were just following the flow at the
moment since they want to reach the shore with everyone else.
I didn’t care what they did to try to belong somewhere since
I was being myself, and if being myself didn’t please them,
they didn’t matter. If being alone meant that I never had to
put up with toxic relations and shallow bonds, so be it. Being
alone isn’t too bad in the first place. I can read without
distraction, I can ponder without their reproach, I can be
myself without their judging gazes, and I could spend time
learning and understanding myself. I never heard of my sixth
grade class again, but I’d never change who I am just so that
I can have false, surface-deep friendship. After all, I met
a keeper who accepts me for who I am and doesn’t treat me
with toxicity for it.
Name: Claude Charles B. Kierulf Year and Section: XI-
Heisenberg

Pattern of Development: DESCRIPTION

Dry Your Saltwater Eyes

Hot sand sears the sole of his feet as he steps out from
under the shade of the gigantic, dark blue parasol with a
scent that suggests its purchase date, and into the sun,
white-hot and blinding. You can tell that it’s summer by the
cool summer breeze drifting around greeting all on the island
in the middle of the sea. Squinting his eyes, he raises his
arms to shade his eyes and as he does, the sound of a shutter
goes off behind him. From behind the lenses of the camera,
holding the object with two hands and fingers on the right
buttons, a faint smirk can be seen from the lone photographer.
Exaggeratedly whining, he calls out her name, drawling out
each syllable while trying to sound amused – the kind of voice
that he’d use whenever he’s too happy to dredge everything up
in his usual antagonism.

Two kindred souls are under the shade of a parasol in

the island in the middle of the sea. She’s sitting cross-
legged on a mat that they’d bought from a mart, bright red
and green, colored like a watermelon. It hadn’t been the one
he chose, but she had held up the mat, grin wide, and he found
himself terribly helpless against the sun itself incarnated
and shining bright in from of him. She breathes out a “Sorry.
It was a nice shot,” and laughs, breathless in the way that
she always sounds, holding her camera close to her chest
protectively. Even then, she still raises the camera one more
time to take a picture of his raised eyebrow, and crossed
arms.
 He steps back under the shade of the parasol and plops
down unto the mat, getting sand everywhere as he kicks it
with his feet. She frowns and whines something about getting
sand on her lens cap, but he had already made sure not to get
any of it near her. She grips her camera in her left hand and
uses her right to brush away hair from her right ear. With
that one moment of weakness, he takes the camera from her
gently, like one would care for a fragile new-born baby. He
raises the magnifier to his eyes and takes a picture of just
that, of her confused, amused expression, the corners of her
mouth curling upward in delight. The picture comes out with
colors so vivid its almost real. She’s always beautiful. Her
golden locks akin to dandelions in a field accentuates her
pale, pinkish skin. Her eyes are pools of deep cerulean, not
of shallow waters but those seas with torrents of whirlpools
deep enough he fears he’ll never resurface whenever he gazes
at the blue orbs.

He returns the camera to her and helps in putting the

strap around her neck, watches it stick to pale skin, chafed
a slight pink. “You’re not too bad,” she teases. He remarks
with a snarky “I pointed a camera and clicked it,” but his
eyes are creased at the corner like they always do whenever
he talks with her. “Stop it,” she giggles and keeps the camera
under a white towel, making sure that the straps are neatly
tucked in before marching into the sun, blindingly bright.

She turns back to smile at him, eyes crinkling, with a

question on the tip of her tongue that she doesn’t need to
lend voice to. He stands, stretching out his knees, wriggling
his toes deeper into the sand, feeling shells and sticks
scrape the sole of his feet. She holds her hand and his heart
skips a beat and they walk to the shore, farther and farther
away from the hypnotizing and sleepy allure of the parasol
and the shade and the salty tang in the back of his throat
from the cool midsummer breeze. When the soft sand gives way
to the wet sand where the tide reaches, she wiggles her toes
into the sand and pulls back from her footprints, like she’s
left a mark.

“Come on,” she says. “Put your mark there too.”

Rolling his eyes, he obliges and plants his foot next to her
smaller one. She laughs in appreciation, the laugh rolling
and delightful, the too-big one that sounds like mid-
afternoon. The tide washes it away on the next wave, filling
up their prints with water and sand, but she just shrugs and
dances into the water in a flurry of movements, eyes turning
into crescents at the coolness of the tide. When they’ve
reached far enough from the shore, he can feel the sea
currents cool on his feet and dancing about on his legs. He
finds himself letting himself sink, chasing after the
tendrils of the sea, but when he comes back up, he hears
laughter and easily locates the source. She points to his
hair and reaches out to pick the piece of viridescent seaweed
hanging from his bangs, grinning when he sputters out in
indignation. He notices the next wave crashing and grounds
his toes into the sand to prepare for it, ducking underneath
quickly and letting the next wave smack her in the face,
unprepared as he was. He surfaces to her hair sticking to her
forehead and uttered a sigh as she wipes her face, trying to
rid his eyes of saltwater. Her eyes are slightly red when
she’s done, but she doesn’t seem fazed at all. He swims the
few meters they’ve been separated, one hand on her shoulders,
the other on her waist. She mirrors him and smiles unbothered,
a smile too fond, too bright for everything. The world is
cast in shades of bright blue. He tastes salt on his lips and
can feel the beginning of a sunburn on his back but ignores
it anyway. The world shrinks down to the two of them in a
bright blue sea, under a bright blue sky, feet and legs
hitting each other as they swim and tread water.