WriteOn! 2024
12th Grade Winning Essays 2015
NATIONAL
1st Place - Iris Dyrmishi, Çorovodë
Topic: Describe what it feels like to be a raindrop falling in a thunderstorm.
My name is Pika. I am not a human but I do have a job. I am a raindrop. I do the same process everyday. I travel back and forth from the sky to the soil/sea. My job is very interesting and unique. I must tell you, I love what I do. In situations like this they always ask what my biggest adventure is. Well, I am going to tell you without being asked about it. I am younger than my friends. I’m the only teenager among them. Once my boss told my I had to be a raindrop during a thunderstorm and so it begins. The lightening was our starting sign, as soon as I saw it I jumped from the cloud. As I mentioned before I was young and some things were unknown to me. That day the sky was darker than ever before and the earth seemed messy from above. The winds were furious and for the first time in my life I was afraid. I had always loved flying, floating in the sky and then falling down but this time it was different. My shoulders were hurting, to be honest I don’t know why. My heart was pounding like crazy and I couldn’t control my actions. Suddenly a lightening hit the earth and I suddenly fell in love with the first sight. The lightning was so perfect, so fast that made me hypnotized. I decided to follow it. It was crazy but that was what my watery heart was saying or better ordering me to do, and so the adventure began. That was the best moment of my life, my body felt lighter and I would fly faster. The light from the lightening lit my way in that dark day and I followed the path the lightening aka my love opened for me. That day I wanted to quit my job and follow her forever. I didn’t know if that happened because I was a teen but the feeling was amazing. I tried to tough the lightening but it was faster than me, I just couldn’t reach it. We were getting closer and closer to the Earth. The views were amazing. I could see the trees kneel in front of the houses from the wild winds, the rivers were flowing faster like they were mad at something, there were no humans to be seen. I am sure my love could see the same sights as I did, but she was determined to finish her job. I was amazed because I would see these amazing things and be with the lightening at the same time. But, every beautiful thing has an end, we both hit the ground. I was okay but my love shouted. I think she got hurt somewhere. The thing I regret the most in my life is that I couldn’t help her heal, that happened because she disappeared. I could just hear her suffer. It was an amazing adventure but with a sad ending. I am trying to locate her but I find it impossible. If you ask me about my life status, I will say “Looking for her desperately.”
2nd Place - Fabiola Nexhipi, Lezhe
Topic: Describe what it feels like to be a falling raindrop in a thunderstorm.
My name is Miu.
I am a raindrop. Or at least I was one. I was one until few minutes ago. Now I am part of a huge puddle. We raindrops are not a pacific kind of nature because we get mad really quickly especially when we see injustices being made to people we care about. I am like all the others.
Everything started when I was a part of a huge massive bundle of air. I liked this one little girl with two little ponytails and with a shining smile. I went wherever she went enjoying the company she gave me. She would sing to her friend and me and my fellow air friend found an indescribable pleasure in listening her song.
One day when I was stretching and yawning, I saw a little man talking to the girl. I was worried. The man shouted at her and the girl started crying. I got really mad. The girl wouldn’t stop crying and irritated by it, the man hit her really hard.
I couldn’t stand it. I got furious. My friends did too. How dare he?! My friend, the wind started blowing in despair, wanting to finish the man. The sky became so cold that he became shooting lightnings at the man. But he didn’t care.
Then me and my friends compacted and formed a huge cloud. We went down and touched temperatures below zero. Suddenly, we were all falling as raindrops. I was so angry I wanted to splash the man and drown him. The wind was so strong it was pulling the trees out their place, and the sky grieved so much that it became grey.
I hit the man as hard as I could. But he didn’t feel it. I slided down his coat to the ground and became one with the puddle.
My name is Miu.
I was a raindrop. Raindrops get angry.
And if next time a thunderstorm occurs in your town, think what have you done to anger us.
3rd Place - Heder Ceni, Lezhe
Prompt: If you were given the opportunity to travel the rest of your life, but under the condition that you cannot return to your home, would you take it? Why?
Home represents safety, security, warmth, a place to go to when the world seems just wrong. A place you know nothing bad can happen to you. A place where you’re surrounded by your loved ones and think that you have everything you need. What can one ask for more?
But is this the life you were meant to live for? Where nothing new happens and strong emotions like adrenaline, fear, insanity, etc. are rarely present? Do you want to wake up from the exact same bed everyday, watch the exact same streets as you go out, do the exact same activities, deal with the exact same bullsh*t? Don’t get me wrong. Your life will get boring, you will get tired. You will constantly feel the need to end up your life cause that is the human soul. It was meant for danger, adventure! Your eyes were meant to see, there’s a whole world out there full of miracle and surprises waiting for you to happen and you choose to refuse just for the sake of those childhood memories you’ve built in your homeland and the fear of losing your loved ones? C’mon! You can find and love people everywhere! Better ones actually, because you will grow up, you will understand things. You will educate yourself in a way you can’t do in your place where things never change. Life is about leaving everything behind and facing with the world. I want to give my life meaning and I can only reach that by filling my soul with the sense of beauty that can be found in the face of the earth. In the hights of the mountains, in the depths of the seas, in the hearts of the people, who’ve come of different cultures. I need to educate myself and and I can’t do that right here by only reading stuff or surfing on the internet. The human heart needs to communicate by touching, hearing, seeing, by being! It is true that you will never have the same home, but what’s wrong with having none? What if the stars become your home? You will become infinite, just as the universe if you lose touch with the past. And I want that. I want my soul to be as beautiful as the galaxies, as the stars, as the sun, as the earth, as the trees, as the smile of a child. Educating yourself is the key to self-understanding, and yes I would take it! I’d never come home because I want to be homeless, but built a big universal home for my universal soul. I need to breathe a different air every day on different cities. I want to try everything. I want to have a problem and on the other day to forget about it and have a new one. I want it new. I want to be new.