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A place for Writing 12 students to read each other's writing, to critique, to suggest, to improve.
About Me
- Brad
- Former adult teacher who loves island beaches. Happy homebody and family man; once devoted dog owner, now without Tashi, my Tibetan Terrier. I prefer the absurdity of the imagination to the absurdity of imagining nothing.
8 comments:
The Smell of Automotive Oil
I love the smell of oil just before you put it into a car’s engine. It smells clean, although that sounds weird. For the longest time, I did my own oil changes (that was before oil change places like Mr. Lube made it cheap to do so). I’d put my car up on ramps and crawl underneath on my “crawler.” That was a little rolling wooden platform with clever little wheels that were only a couple of inches high. Lying on my back, I would peer up through the engine block, find the bottom plug, let the old oil out into a pan (often getting burned by the first bit as it came out), and then attempt to remove the filter. Here’s where I often had problems. Without fail, the oil filter is in an inaccessible spot near a hot engine block. To remove a filter there is a special wrench that loops around it. Often, the filter would not budge! One time, on my wife and I’s first car, I hauled on the filter only to have it break off. That’s how I got a blue-black knuckle on my left middle finger—I cut myself on the ragged edge of the filter and got oil into the wound. To help me, my dad pushed my car to the garage at the corner of 41st and Main (back when garages were plentiful) and they finished the job. I must say that, although I still love the smell of fresh, clean oil, I much prefer letting the pros do the oil changes these days!
--264 words
PNE for the nose
I can remember the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) back when I was a child growing up in the 70’s. Back then, it was twice as large as it is today, however; it still has an assortment of the smells that I fondly associate with those old memories. As soon as we entered the gates, the mouthwatering smell of food was everywhere and changed every few feet we walked – from greasy onion burgers to mini doughnuts to cotton candy to barbeque chicken (that happened to be my father’s favorite.) Then, after indulging the taste buds, we would make our way to the farm pavilions with their sharp, contrasting smells of barnyard life that hit you from all sides. Large and small farm animals each had their own unique smells, rabbits and chickens to horses and huge steers. There was also the agriculture pavilion with its own smells of plants and hay and even the damp, musty, earthy smells of the refrigerated mushroom display room with all assortments of living fungus that you could imagine. This suburban aroma would make you feel like you were miles away, out in the Frazer valley on some country farm when in fact; you were right in the heart of big city Vancouver. I have to admit, half the fun for me about the PNE was the smorgasbord of smells for my nose.
The smell of fried rice, kimchi, egg roll, and seaweed soup always filled the air of our classroom, and even to hallway, it was a lunch time!
“Hey, move your head to see hers!” as she walked towards to our desks. Everyone is busy unlocking their lunch boxes’ latches, but not her. She always “attacked” a well-prepared lunches among other girls, and it was always my turn.
Other girls hated that, including me; when a brave girl asked her why, and all she said was, “That’s a fun of lunchtime, and besides you possibly can’t eat all that, and if you go home with so much leftovers, your mom won’t be happy. . .” with open mouthed—full of foods inside, and dripping the food.
One day, we decided to teach her a lesson that she will never forget. As always, she moved her seat with her chopsticks, and moving towards us. We all know the plan. The plan was that I pour a stale spray to my egg roll, and she ran off. I pour the stalest spray to my egg roll, and waited her to bite. It was like waiting a lion to trap, and it almost worked. When she was about to bite, someone called her name, and put the egg roll to my fried rice. While I was talking to my friends, I ate the egg roll!
Words:232.
P.S: I recycled mine, hope it's ok.. :P
A smelly writing:
Whenever I smell of raw foods, especially raw oysters, I immediately sick because when I was in Korea, I loved to eat raw oysters at home. One day, my mom bought a container full of raw oysters for me to eat, how delicious it was! The moment I slipped the oysters to my mouth, oh! But, I guess I must’ve eaten like a pig because after a while, I passed out and threw up in a washroom.
-80 words.
The Smell of My Mother
It sounds weird or sentimental if I say I miss the smell of my mother. But, after all, what is her smell about? It is too complicated to describe in one sentence. I tried to thread every part of my memories and I found her smell came along with my growth.
When I was a baby, the smell of my mother was the smell of fresh milk. She said her breast milk was too little to feed me so she had to feed me fresh milk for supplement. That must have been the closest moment I could be with my mother at that time, as the rest of my time I had to be sent to the daycare. When I was a little girl, the smell of my mother was like the steaming hot noodle soup with long and thin stands, a poach egg floated in the center as it always was, and sprinkled with chopped green onions and sesame seeds. Oh how I loved to eat it after school. As I went to the university, the smell of my mother became a parcel with countless stitches. Inside the parcel it was the new shirt she just made up for me. However, I despised her work; I thought it smelled rustic and looked rustic too. My gaze always fell upon the jeans and fancy T-shirts inside my school-shop’s window. I thought it was much much better than my mother’s hand made cloths.
When I became a mother of my child, all of sudden, I missed my mother’s noodle soup. Even though I can cook the noodle by my own, I do, but the smell is just as futile as it was wrong. Then I realized I must be homesick. It is not that I can’t cook my mother’s noodle soup; it is the nostalgia numbed my taste. I hope one day, my child does not have to feel what I feel now, ‘cause most of his memories has already rooted in this free land called Canada.
--336words
The Smell of Home Cooking
The smell of frying onions will always immediately make me think of being in my childhood home with Grandma or Grandpa cooking dinner in the kitchen. It always built an anticipation of the delicious dish, such as pork chops or beef steak to come while I played in the living room. It made me feel so safe and secure, knowing that a wonderful home cooked meal was prepared for us every night. It was our daily routine. In those days, eating out or ordering in a meal was not a usual occurrence like families tend to do more of today. It was simply our family staple. While my grandparents lived with us, you could be sure a homemade recipe was prepared.
I’m grateful, in light of the eating habits of today’s children, that my brother and I were not subjected to repeated visits to McDonald’s or the like, because of a rushed and busy family lifestyle, even though both my parents worked full-time. But we were blessed to enjoy a good meal each day because my grandparents cared enough about us to take the time and effort to cook freshly prepared food. That even included breakfast (which my dad made for us before school each day) and a good lunch that was packed daily for me for school as well.
Today, looking at the obesity increase that has occurred over these last few decades in North America, I shudder when I see what kids are eating these days, even for school lunch. In recent news, there even needed to be a policy turnover to get pop machines taken out of schools. How it was allowed to be there in the first place is my question. Thankfully, however, the authorities are taking notice of how the poor diet of school kids are effectively increasing, and is related to, the obesity epidemic we have on our hands. It’s at least a first step to reversing this unhealthy trend.
-326 words
The Scent of Basil
Basil has a special strong pungent smell, and it's the important flavour of "Three Cup Chicken", one of my favourite Taiwanese dishes seasoned with a cup of wine, a cup of soya sauce and a cup of sesame oil. But, I couldn't accept the basil's smell and the taste when I was little. It's just like some children dislike tomato, some children dislike carrot. I never knew what basil really looked like since it was already cooked when it was presented on the table in front of my eyes, and I really hated the smell.
One summer afternoon, I played house out side with May, my friend and also neighbour. She played father, I was mother, and my doll was our baby. There was a farm field next to the lane of our houses, and a row of house beside it. The house in the end was the best spot for us to play because it was empty then and there was a stone sink in front of it. I picked a piece of broken red brick to grind some powder, and got some grass and petals for cooking. "Ding-dong! Honey, I'm home!" May shouted. Somehow I thought to get some special leaves then. "Hey darling, we need some fresh vegetable. Let's get some from the farm!" We searched the plant along the path, but nothing special. We walked inside deeper. Suddenly, I found a lovely plant with several green leaves on its stem, and its smell was so special. "Yes, that's it." When I stretched out my hand to pick one, a noise came from the farther fruit farm. A crowd of tweenagers ran to our direction, and a man ran after them, shouted, "Bad kids, stole my guava! Don't run!" As they came closer to us, the men cried, Hey, are you two girls stealing my basil? Don't move!" I was shocked, and then dropped off the plant on my hand, and ran with all my effort. May and I ran back our each home. I locked the door, pantingly. I slid into my room, went to my bed, covered with my blanket. When I closed my eyes, the wonderful smell of basil still remained in my mind.
Sunny weather, hot road, raindrops then rainbow appeared
One time I was strolling in Edmonds to check stuffs that I need. My daughter accompanied me because she loved to be with me. The weather was so bright and sunny, but the road seemed so hot that caused my feet to sore as I was only wearing a thinner beach walk typed slippers. We have reached the store where we would like to get those things, paid the cashier afterwards, then we left. While walking down with my hands lifting my bags of goodies from Edmonds to Kingsway, suddenly the sky became gloomy and showered us with continued droplet of rain. After a heavy rain, a rainbow appeared in the sky when the sun shines again after a shower of rain. A rainbow formed an arch of brilliant colours that spreads all the way across the sky. The two ends of the arch may appear to touch the earth. My daughter appreciated that big rainbow with beautiful colours.
Although it was an amazing experience, the road reeks and had a foul and smelly odour that seeped right under our nose. My tummy began to ache that I could not forget because it happened to me too during my younger years in the Philippines. Later on my daughter was also complaining that her tummy was aching. She asked me why it happened to both of us, I replied, “Any foul odor could upset the stomach and psychologically affects the body systems.” Funny though, both my daughter and i took a pill at that time for pain relief, then we're both well.
260 words ---
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