Friday, October 3, 2008

The Musical Enjoyment of a Grand Slam


Eric
Mr. B-G
9/30/08
Value Essay

Most people value their expensive cars, big screen televisions, and their expensive Rolex watches, diamond necklaces, and other fine jewelry. People in America range from billionaires to people who are happy when they have food to eat that day. This means that different people value different things depending on what they have and what they can afford. What is it that is considered valuable? Is it something that cost a lot of money, or is it something that they truly cherish?

I grab my thin slender ipod and press the button in the center. I hit the button again to go to my fascinating songs. I move my finger in a clockwise formation to scroll down to one of my favorite songs. I press the button one more time to listen to it. Listening to my ipod is one of the things that I like to do most.

At the end of the day, I enjoy relaxing by lying down and listening to my music. All of my music is stored in my black ipod nano. It holds hundreds of the songs that I like to listen to when ever I please. I mostly use my ipod when I get home from school because it wipes away all of the stress I get between homework, tests, and anything else that happened that day. It allows me to block out the rest of the world and lets me not think about anything else that is going on for about half an hour.

Bases are loaded, I walk up to home plate with my baseball bat over my shoulder. I know that this a clutch situation, I can either win the game for my team or possibly lose it in a matter of minutes. The rain beats down on me as I take my first step into the batter's box. I look at the pitcher and grip the bat as I wait for the pitch. He gets the sign and coils up like a snake, then the ball comes spitting out of his hand at a high velocity. The ball is venturing down the middle of the plate, and I decide to take a swing at it. I see the ball leave my bat and journey off out of sight. I drop the bat and start running as fast as I humanely can.

Getting a grand slam was one of the most exciting days of my life, not to mention that it ended up winning the game for my team. I was extremely nervous when I found out that I was up with bases loaded and my team was down by three. After I hit the ball, I knew that I had to run as fast as I can. At first I thought that maybe the ball has a chance of going over the fence, but as I rounded first base, I knew that it was going to stay in the park. I was pretty disappointed, but I thought that I could maybe still have a chance of scoring.

As I almost reached second base, I saw the right fielder pick up the filthy baseball covered in mud from the horrible rain. I hear my couches telling me to head for third base, so I start running faster. At this point I did not want to stop running, I wanted to go home and score. I am relived as my third base coach is swinging his arm around as fast as a propellor on a airplane, telling me to go home. I took a glance to see where the ball was at. The last person in the relay has it in their drenched baseball glove and is ready to rocket the ball to the catcher at home plate. I was very worried and thought that my chances of scoring after all were being diminished rapidly.

It felt like forever for me to run home, but I made it. I was safe. I could not believe what had just happened, I got my first grand slam in a baseball game. I was ecstatic. My whole team came out of the dugout and surrounded me. It felt like a dream to me, I never expected to get a grand slam. My team and I were up by one now, the other had their at bats . Luckily they did not score a single run that inning. At the end of the fifth inning, the umpire called the came because it was lightening out. An official game has to go five full innings. My team and I ended up winning the game. The grand slam that I had hit ended up winning the game for my team.

I value my ipod and my game winning grand slam for different and actually similar reasons. My ipod allows me to relax and listen to my favorite songs. My ipod cost about 150 dollars but is not the most expensive thing that I own. My P.S.P. is about 170 dollars, not including games. I do try to get care of my ipod but after years of having it, time takes a toll on it. Having an ipod is very important to me even though it is not a necessity to life. Without it I would not be able to relax and release my stress at the end of the day.

My grand slam made me feel great and I felt like playing baseball all day long. A game winning grand slam is something that does not happen often in your life time. It gave me a feeling that made think that I could do whatever I wanted to do. Playing baseball is what I do in my spare time; it is my favorite sport to play.

Both my ipod and my grand slam allow me to do the two things that I like to do the most than any other thing in the world. I like listening to music because it relaxes me and I like hearing my favorite songs too. I love to play baseball on teams or with my friends at each other's houses. Hitting a grand slam is one of the greatest feelings to me because it is a great accomplishment. I love hitting grand slams wether it is in a game or playing waffle ball in my front yard with my friends. Relaxing and playing baseball both make my happy in different ways. Listening to music makes me happy because I am by myself and get to unwind. Playing baseball makes my happy because I get to play with my friends and I love the game.

6 comments:

andrew said...

IN erics essay he Talks about valuing his i pod and hitting a grand slam. I think he values his grand slam more becasue it is very rare event in bsaeball and he described it well.

He described hitting the grand slam very well. I could see the rain pelting him as he entered the batters box. It was described so well i could hear the scene in my head.

This essays overall strengths were the descriptiveness.He used excellent word choice to describe his scenes. It was a great overall essay, also his word order helped.

It could be alitle longer. That is the only thing that o could think of. ONe other thing is his conclusion and comparisons.

Nick said...

Eric really shows how much he loves his ipod and hitting a grand slam in baseball. I think that the grand slam is more valuable to him because he describes it so well, it just hops off the page for me.
Eric really shows how much he loves grand slams by saying, "Getting a grand slam was one of the most exciting days of my life, not to mention that it ended up winning the game for my team." By winning a game for the team, he gained trust by the other players, this is irreplaceble.
Eric really does a great job with describing his "slender" ipod. The picture of an ipod could not get out of my head during the reading of his eassay. His wording was amazing and It could barely be improved.
The only hting I would try to touch up on would be the title. The title is plain and right in your face. Some people prefer out and in your face, but personally i like having to think about it a little. Otherwise, he did a great job! Good work eric.

Nick said...

Eric really shows how much he loves his ipod and hitting a grand slam in baseball. I think that the grand slam is more valuable to him because he describes it so well, it just hops off the page for me.
Eric really shows how much he loves grand slams by saying, "Getting a grand slam was one of the most exciting days of my life, not to mention that it ended up winning the game for my team." By winning a game for the team, he gained trust by the other players, this is irreplaceble.
Eric really does a great job with describing his "slender" ipod. The picture of an ipod could not get out of my head during the reading of his eassay. His wording was amazing and It could barely be improved.
The only hting I would try to touch up on would be the title. The title is plain and right in your face. Some people prefer out and in your face, but personally i like having to think about it a little. Otherwise, he did a great job! Good work eric.

Connor said...

Eric, your introduction was very good and you had a number of sentences that questioned the meaning of value.

I think your grand slam priceless moment was described the best. I like when you say,” I hear my couches telling me to head for third base, so I start running faster. At this point I did not want to stop running, I wanted to go home and score. I am relived as my third base couch is swinging his arm around as fast as a propellor on a airplane, telling me to go home.”

Your overall strength in this essay was located in your baseball value paragraph because you used a number of paragraphs to explain that great moment in the pouring rain with your team surrounding you because you just won the game for them.

If I could give you one piece of advice it would be to draw a conclusion on what value is and what it means to you or how you define it.

Mike's Blog said...

The author seems to be saying that some people value different things because they have different amounts of money. He’s saying that someone that’s a billionaire would value something differently than someone who is poor. He most strongly values his ipod and getting a game-winning grand slam.

The object that I found most vividly described was the author’s game-winning grand slam. He made it seem very believable. He used good word choice and made it very easy to picture him hitting the grand slam.

One overall strength of the essay was the author’s introduction. He wrote a good introduction because he let the reader know what the essay was going to be about without giving out everything it was going to be about.

One suggestion I would have for the author would be to proofread better. I saw a couple simple spelling mistakes and funny sounding sentences. One example is “couches” when I think he means coaches.

Jack said...

The author is saying that the value of something might be high to one person, but low to another. An example would be food. To you or me, food is an abundance, but to a homeless man, food is a scarcity.

the paragraph about the grand slam was very well written. Eric used great words like drenched and ecstatic.This was a great part "It felt like forever for me to run home, but I made it. I was safe. I could not believe what had just happened, I got my first grand slam in a baseball game. I was ecstatic."

The strength of the essay would have to be the introduction. It has a very good hook, and makes me want to read more. It also makes me think about the subject, because he asked some good questions.

One thing to make the essay better would be to work on the description of the iPod a bit. Other than that, everything seemed fine.