The first essay I read was called Books at All Costs by Kristin Kelly. The title of this essay is what caught my attention because I love to read. Kelly was a high school teacher who left her job to go to graduate school. In her first class she read T.S. Elliot, which she had to go buy the Oxford English Dictionary to help her understand most of the words. This dictionary cost about 300 dollars. Kelly talks about how owning your own book is so much better then borrowing and how by owning books you can leave a legacy. I totally agree with her on this. I love going to the library, but when I get gift cards to a book store, it's so much better. When you own a book you can call it your own, you can make marks in it, and you can bend the tops of the pages. I love owning books because I know that I can go back and read it any time I want.

The second essay I read was called Call Your Mother by Suzanne Biemiller. This caught my eye because I'm very attached to my mom. I'm a huge mama's girl and I always will be. This essay tells us how when Suzanne went off to college she started to call her mom as often as possible, and how even now that they live in the same city they talk almost every day. The other day my mom and I were talking about college and I told her how I was going to call her every day. I don't know how I'm going to survive without my mom, even though I'm only going to be two hours away. I can totally relate with what Suzanne said about how calling your mom and just hearing her voice can calm you and reassure you.

The third essay I read was called Grace Is a Gift by Laura Durham. This essay tells about a time in the third grade when she forgot her spelling test at home and how her teacher gave her grace by forgiving her and not making an example out of her. She says that she remembers this a lot of the time when she thinks what comes around goes around, and how she must remember to forgive and give grace. I agree that sometimes we just need to use compasion and forgive people. I had a time in fifth grade when my teacher caught me cheating during a test and instead of writing me up or telling my mom, she gave me forgiveness and grace and let it go. I totally agree that sometimes you need to just give people grace and forgiveness.

The fourth essay I read was called Do What You Love writen by Tony Hawk. I wanted to read this because I always had fascination and admiration for Tony Hawk. Tony talks about how people judge him because his profession is skateboarding, but he doesn't care because he's doing what he loves. He talked about his son used to skate for endorsements but then he dropped those because he just wanted to skate for fun. Tony explained that even if you don't make it to the top, you should still do what you love. I really relate to this because I always knew that I wasn't going to make it to the top in soccer because of all my injuries, but I know that in the future that isn't going to stop me from doing what I love. I know that I will always love and play soccer.