Valuable Letter
A Valuable Letter
By Elda Gonzalez
Waldsee was an experience that has stayed with me for a long time. During my 2 week stay at my German camp, I received a letter from my mom through mail. Usually, we do not communicate through letters, so this was a new experience for me. This was the only form of communication between campers and parents since phones were not allowed. I briefly explained how to send a letter through the online website. There was a time slot for mail in the schedule that we followed. This was my first time staying away from home this long. I had sent home several letters before, but I had not received responses before. I looked forward to hearing my name being called out for mail. I would be disappointed to not hear my name. Usually, I would join my friend in reading their letter and hear about her family. Her family would keep her up to date on things back home. She seemed pleased to read and share her letters with me. I got to know more about her through these letters. We chose different names in the beginning, and, through these, letters I would receive hints of her real name. Her name started with an E.
One day, I unexpectedly heard my name. She had sent this towards the end of my stay at this camp. I even considered applying for a 4 week stay at this camp. This would earn me a one year worth credit. However, I don’t think I would have been willing to stay this long when I was homesick from 2 weeks. When my mom sent me a letter saying how things were going, I was happy since I had not heard from her in a while. Although we communicate everyday, I felt even more grateful to receive this letter. She had informed me about the events going on back home and how she had helped me with them. If I was back home, I would have delivered it with her. However, due to lack of time, I asked my mom to deliver a piece of cake to a friend. I had also asked her to finish replying to my other friend, who I had received advice for the camp. She also mentioned the well-being of my pets. I would take care of them everyday. I had experienced a lot of new things, and it was nice to feel a sense of familiarity. I could see how excited my mom was for me through this letter. I longed to go home and return to my everyday life.
However, this also reminded me that I was running out of time at this camp. This was the first stay away camp I had ever gone to and I had made so many memories with friends and teachers. I tried so many new German dishes and tried out many group activities. I got accustomed to the routine fastly. We would sing, dance, and learn together. The community was closely knit. I also bought a lot of snacks with the currency I had exchanged. I had also memorized the places on the camp by the amount of times I passed through them. I would go down the hill from our cabin to the dining hall and to other outdoor-indoor locations. I would wake up and go to bed early which was different from the schedule back home.
This letter called me back home. However, marked that the time at this camp was almost over. It was as if it was preparing me, once again, to adjust to my routine. Although sad, this also made the memories I made at this camp even more memorable. This letter served as both a reminder of home while I was there but also as a record of my time there from Waldsee, the forest lake.
Hi Elda. It's interesting how you've developed a double-meaning for the letter your mom sent you during camp: both as a symbol of home while at camp and as a symbol of camp while at home. I've never really spent much time away from my family, but I can definitely understand your homesickness and the comfort that letter must have brought. I imagine it must have been pretty lonely seeing your friend recieve so many letters when you only recieved one, but I'm glad you got at least something from back home. Anyways, this draft has a pretty good conversational tone. There is a lot of narration, and if you were to keep working on it, I might tying it to a more general message using "you"s and "we"s like the Lopate reading said. Nice job overall!
ReplyDeleteHi Elda! I really enjoyed reading your experience at the German camp. I like how you incorporated how, even though you really liked the camp, you felt a little homesick. It brought multiple perspectives into the piece. I really liked how descriptive you were about your time in camp. However, I think you could be clearer on how the letters are important to you. Maybe you could quote some specific excerpts from the letter, so it feels more authentic and raw. I really liked how you added E into the narrative. It brought another dimension and more details into your experience. Maybe, you could add how her letters made you feel (i.e homesick? happy?) and relate that more towards your narrative of the letter. I think, overall, you did a great job! I would say just "zoom in" on how your letters affected you during the camp. Also, I think you could get some more sentence length variance.
ReplyDeleteHey Elda! I think it was really interesting to hear you come around from wishing you could go home and be with your family to reminiscing about the memories that Waldsee elicited. I think you did a great job with the conclusion, wrapping up how you felt about being able to go home to the routine you know best, but also acknowledging that you also felt somewhere inside you that you would really miss the experiences you were able to have at camp. This is a key part of the points that Lopate makes, and I think you've done a great job! As for how it reads, I think you've done a pretty good job with getting a conversational tone across, though I do think some of your sentences could be longer and varied. You could also, near the end, maybe talk a little bit about how your very understandable feelings of homesickness but also not wanting to leave the camp can relate to others: I think that could be a nice addition that would align with what Lopate says about personal essays and the human experience. Otherwise, great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Elda! I like the beautiful sense of nostalgia in your essay; you create a lot of emotional depth. To enhance the quality of your paper, I think you could play around with sentence length variety. Right now, you don't have any long sentences. You could also consider adding more transitions to make it sound smoother and more cohesive in certain areas. Also, if you are comfortable with it, I would suggest that you delve deeper into the letter's content. What phrases from the letter do you cherish the most and why? Overall, your draft is really engaging and sweet.
ReplyDeleteHi Elda! I really liked reading this story as you did a good job with detail and allowing me to visualize how you felt when you received that letter. I was able to relate to this story because I have also been to summer camps that I really did not want to end, but at the same time I was also longing to go home and see my family. It can be hard because you create so many memories with people in a very short amount of time and then once you leave, you don't hear from them again. One thing I can say about your writing is that your sentences are a little short so maybe try expanding them a little more, but other than that, great job!
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