February 5, 2014
Morgan Andaluz
English 100
Unexpected life-changing news delivered on a Sunday night<1) See rules for caps in title and proper title formatting>
It was a Sunday night after dinner time right before bed, I<2) comma splice> was laying on my grandparents big comfy king sized bed with my grandma playing games on the television because I had just discovered all these different kinds of games<3) vary word choice> that you could play for free. A ring of the doorbell rang through the house; it went ding, dong, ding, dong and then quickly faded away.<4) wordy structure, but proper use of semi-colon J Nice use of concrete sound > My grandma told me to “go and answer the door”<5) Why is this in direct quotes? Think about the function of dialogue> but I was to fascinated by the thought of playing chess through the television against my grandma using our remote control that I didn’t listen and just kept playing<6) run-on/see use of comma with coordinating conjunctions>. A minute or so passed by and yet no one answered the door my grandpa in the bathroom, and my grandma and myself still playing chess on the television. The doorbell rang two more times before my grandpa finally yelled out, “Aulii, if that doorbell rings one more time and you don’t answer it you’re going straight to bed!” In my grandmas big oversized shirt and my hair all tangled I ran as fast as I could through our long dark hallway and to the kitchen to greet whoever was at the door.7) great concrete sentence, but it is a run-on>
I opened the door and was greeted by a big lady dressed in all black, and two girls around my age, the<8) comma splice> girls looked friendly but the lady, the lady look unfriendly and intimidating.9) revise punctuation – also, do you really need that redundant phrase?> What does “unfriendly and intimidating look like? This is a good place to show your reader> It was dark outside and since our garage light bulb was broken I couldn’t really see whom I was talking to<10) run-on/if you couldn’t see her, then how does she look unfriendly?>. “I’m looking for Sarena,” the big lady says<11) verb tense shift> in a witch like voice, which scared me a bit. “No Sarena here sorry you have the wrong house” I reply and before I could slam the door one of the girls hugged me and gave me a stuffed animal, scared and kind of in shock that some random girl just hugged me, I quickly slammed the door. Just wanting to get back to my game of chess I start to run back to my grandparents room when whoever was at the door knocked. Annoyed and frustrated I open the door and ask, “Yes?” “Can I speak to your grandparents?” the lady asks. I yell “Mama, Papa there’s someone here who wants to see Sarena can you tell them there’s no Sarena here so I can get back to the game!” She gave me the meanest look ever like I had no respect and no manners, so I gave her the same look right back. Waiting for a reply my grandpa walks out to the kitchen and tells me to go back into the room, I was so happy that I didn’t have to talk to this witch like woman that I ran to the room and back to my game. The woman and my grandpa talked for a good five minutes before he came into the room and said, “It’s Drena, she’s here to give her Christmas gifts.” My grandma yelled, “What!” her face a pale white like she was sick to her stomach. She eventually started pacing back and forth from her bed to the bathroom; cuss words came out of her mouth but all I could think of were the gifts. “Gifts I want more gifts, what kinds of gifts” I yelled at the top of my lungs jumping up and down on the bed. “Go into the kitchen and talk to whoever is at the door,” my grandpa said, “aren’t you coming?” “No” he replied.
I ran back out to the kitchen, opened the door and smiled. “I’m Drena your grandmother, you can call me Apo and these are your cousins Reyna and Chyna.” Confused but still having my mind on the gifts, I say “Nice to meet you all, I’m Aulii.” “Well Sarena these are your Christmas gifts from me, your aunties, uncles and your father Shane, hopefully one day you will meet him, your brother, sister and step-mom.” Taking the gifts my smile turns into a blank stare not really comprehending what she has said I thank her, close the door and walk away.