Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language, violence, and mature content.
It is August 28, the day I finally start my first day in college. After graduating from Hawthorne High School, I've already been spoiled enough by my family. One of them even bought me a round-trip ticket to Hawaii for two weeks, expensive backpacks, and everything else. Right now, I have some of them on me. What I have on me is a light pink denim vest (Bought from my aunt), a white sweetheart tube attached to a black short pleated skirt (Bought from my mom), a black book bag that was made in Japan (Bought from my brother), school supplies that were bought from multiple Japanese stores (Bought from my brother as well), and a pair of light pink Vans (Bought from my dad).
My dad is currently driving me to El Camino during 6:45am. Thank God, I don't have to worry about going to school on time unlike last year. In my Senior Year, I was required to take a 0 Period which starts from 7am to 7:53am.
"You're finally starting college," My dad stated the obvious, "You and your brother are lucky you get to have the opportunity of going into college. Unlike you two, your mom and I finished high school and that's it..."
"Yeah..." That was the only response I made.
Believe me, he's not wrong. He and my mom have constantly been telling my brother and me this ever since we started elementary school. My dad works in this multinational corporation at Carson, my mom works in a hotel located at Beverly Hills, and now my brother is already working in this environmental center in Foothill Ranch. I'm the only one in the house who doesn't have a career and still have a few more years to be what I've always wanted: a Kindergarten Teacher. That career triggered me thanks to my younger siblings and one of the Freshmen classes I was a TA for during my Senior Year.
Besides my dream goal, I have another goal in mind other than finding the perfect guy in my life and make kids with him. My long-term goal is to surpass my whole family. I want to achieve everything and I want to experience things that none of my relatives experienced.
Back in high school, I was the very first member in my family to be a candidate from this rigorous program called the International Baccalaureate and the President of an organization called Poetry Club.
High school has been the best years of my life. Despite the past mistakes I've made and despite the amount of times I got hurt, I'm still me. I’m still the sweet, intelligent girl everyone knows. In fact, I still have my same old friends by my side, even though some of them are no longer living in California.
"What do you think of the things you got?" My dad asked.
"I think they're all nice. I appreciate them," I answered. I know how it's like to be proud of someone who achieved something and you end up spoiling them afterwards. I've never done it before, but I can understand how it felt. I didn't expect to receive this many gifts, but I do expect to get more than what I got by the time I have my Philippine Debut.
My dad and I have made it to El Camino College in approximately ten minutes due to small traffic. Even though my class starts in an hour, I've been feeling so pumped to start college. The one thing that kind of sucks is how I'm going to see the same people because this is a community college. But in about 2 or 3 years, I will most likely transfer out.
"Be safe," My dad reminded me as always.
"I will," I smiled. I hopped out of my dad's Nissan Pathfinder with my bag. As soon as I closed the door, he drove away from me a few seconds later.
I pulled out my iPhone 5S from my book bag to check the time; it was 6:52am. I promised my friends Nathale and Lia that I would meet up with them in McDonald’s by 7am. The restaurant is near the school, so it may take me a few minutes to walk there. I put my phone away and started heading to the one place that was practically everyone’s childhood restaurant.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hi Cabudolc,
I'm Jai, nice to meet you ^^
Critique sandwich time.
1. What did I like about this piece?
> You have a good grasp of sentence structure and the use of punctuation. That means you have read quite a few works and are keen to make your own mark on the world. Some writers take a long time to realise the importance of punctuation. Your character seems like a typical teenager and is on her way to becoming a teacher - no small feat.
2. What specific points need improvement?
> There are a few things I noticed that if changed will improve your writing. For instance, you tend to write "my dad" continuously. It's unnecessary and becomes repetitive to use "my" before "dad". In fact, you can refer to him as all sorts of things. "The man didn't begrudge driving me to El Camino so early in the morning" or "dad quickly glanced at me before he stated the obvious". Change it up a little bit to keep it interesting.
> You seem to use a very passive voice. "It is August 28, the day I finally start my first day in college" - like the reviewer before me said, it's very important that your first sentence and first paragraph are arresting and suck the reader in. In active voice you could write, "August 28 marked the first day of college". Even that sounds a little lacklustre. You could build up the day, or build up the college aspect to make the sentence have more flavour. For example, "August has always reminded me of xxx, but from now on August will xxx college".
> The history of your main character's life in high school is very much an info dump. You can disperse this information throughout the entire story, bringing it up when it's relevant. At the moment you've just told us a bunch of stuff about before college when the story is supposed to be about college. If you want to write about high school, write about high school. You'd definitely know a lot about it and you'll be able to share your experiences that way. At the moment you're going to have to do a lot of research into how college works to ensure your story rings true. For instance, is the character's dad always going to drive her to college every morning? That seems a little strange.
3. What are my concluding thoughts?
> I think that you're on the right track. A few adjustments and you've got an interesting story at your finger tips. Just think a little bit about what sort of story do you want to tell. Is this a story about her friends growing up? Will it be about mundane things such as going to McDonald's for breakfast? Will it be about exploring college and falling in love? Always aim towards your end goal and don't be afraid to give your character some life. Sweet, intelligent girls sometimes don't make very good characters if that's all there is to them.
Best of luck!
- Jai
Helloooo, I'm WADDLERZ! I review stuff from top to bottom, so yus!
; maybe she isn't used to getting a lot of the things. And to be fair to you, it is written in a diary entry type format, it can work well for mind ramblings to spill out on the page. But be careful not to dump too much stuff on the reader 
I am guilty of this, too; don't worry.
I like how it delved into her life a bit more, and confirmed my suspicion of her actually not usually being spoiled. 
The following paragraph reveals more of her personality; I like her, she seems determined and independant! 
The next few paragraphs help settle all of the newly learnt things in well.
The last few paragraphs were good. On a whole it was good! Short and sweet. I think the only issue is that the first paragraph is just a bit off putting; and the first paragraph usually needs to be quite impressive! Fix that, and you'll have a great first chapter! 
At first, the beginning paragraph strikes me as slightly immature sounding/written, especially for a 16+ rated chapter. However, there's no real use in me telling you this without giving you any help, so; For example, where you've written " After graduating from Hawthorne High School, I've already been spoiled enough by my family. " This is shown in the following writing, so you don't necessarily need to say it here, though I suppose it could be there to show her character
Also in this first paragraph, you could mention nto only what shes wearing but her physical appearance and her Fathers? Colour hair, eyes etc.
"It is August 28, the day I finally start my first day in college! After graduating from Hawthorne High School, my family bought me an amazing array of things; a round-trip ticket to Hawaii for two weeks, expensive backpacks, and all sorts of other special items. In fact, I have some of them on me right now! I'm wearing a light pink denim vest from my aunt, a white sweetheart tube attached to a black short pleated skirt from my mom, a black book bag and school supplies that were bought from multiple Japanese stores from my brother, and a pair of light pink Vans from my dad!" I'm nto sure how much better this re-phrasing is, but oh well; I've given it a try!
Present tense is hard and I think you noticed this while writing and switch after the second paragraph. If you just go over the present tense parts to make them easier to write, that would make the chapter read better as a whole.
"and I finished high school and that's it..."" I think sounds better as "and I finished high school and that was it...""
The fifth paragraph was very good !
So the next chapter will be in Macky D's!!!