Ethan's Nonfiction Writing Blog

I remember my first time skiing as if it was yesterday. It was the perfect skiing day anyone could ask for. The sun was shining, and the fresh powdery snow was just waiting for me to glide my skis across it. On my first lesson I fell in love with adrenaline rush I got while zipping down a ski hill, and the cool rush of wind against my face. Ever since my family and I have gone on a ski trip to the West at least once a year. The trips are always filled with excitement, laughter, and pure fun. Skiing is fantastic but I do not think that anything can compare to how happy a summer camp called Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute or OSRUI for short makes me year after year. Besides what can be better than a place 4 hours away from home with no parents, and no homework to worry about! I have been going to OSRUI ever since I was 8 years old and it has been a second home to me. I love swimming in the lake and playing capture the flag. I love going to the music center and learning new things on my ...

what speaker would you bring to your school? I was walking through the streets of Bologna Italy when I saw a huge gathering at one of the city squares. It was a climate change summit and they were showing a movie on a huge screen for the entire city to watch. The movie was about people trying to make a change in the world, and one of them was Elon Musk. One of his ideas was to build 7 super battery plants around the world. These 7 plants would have the biggest carbon footprint of any other building ever built but they would be able to supply the entire world with energy.   All of his ideas seemed crazy and impossible, but that’s what intrigues me most about him. That is exactly why if I had to invite one speaker to speak at my school it would be Elon Musk.               I came home from the trip thinking about how awesome it would be to talk to him or to hear him speak. Just a couple of months later I watched Elon Mus...

How does procrastination play a role in your life? It’s 6am on Wednesday morning and the timer started to run. In exactly 9 hours I would be taking a history test. Now, this was not just an ordinary history test. This was a 6 flowchart history test. I got dressed as fast as I could, ate, brushed my teeth, got all my school stuff together and headed out the door. It was 7:30. Exactly 7.5 hours until test time. Let me explain why a sophomore modern history test is so hard. Our teacher created his own curriculum where he used flowcharts to explain all the events that took place throughout history. These flowcharts are composed of many text boxes that are connected by arrows. Each flowchart is also accompanied by a reading to explain how the flowchart works. Every single class our teacher would explain the flowchart and we would take notes. Some flowcharts are big and some are smaller, but no matter the size they are a pain in the butt to memorize. Now back to the story. I walked ...

Prompt: What is your role in your family? Everyone has their role in a family, and many of those roles seem very natural. Every person is good at somethings and every person is bad at other things. For example, I am a terrible cook. If I try to cook a meal, I will inevitably use the wrong amount of water, somehow break a plate, undercook the meat, and somehow by the end my mom is back in the kitchen trying to save my house from burning down. Instead, I stick with my job in the family and everyone else sticks to theirs.             I am our family’s designated GPS if go somewhere. If we are in Europe, the middle of the woods or even if we’re in IKEA (don’t ever underestimate how confusing IKEA is), I am always supposed to know where to go or know how to get back to where we started. My dad has a terrible sense of direction. His sense of direction is so bad that he somehow always wants to go the opposite way. If we have to turn l...

Prompt:  Do you wish you could return to a moment in your past? I believe that people live for emotion. If people did not experience emotion, they would not be motivated to do anything. You go on roller coasters not because you have to, but because you want to feel the rush and excitement. That is why if I had to return to any moment in the past, it would be the last day of a 7 week overnight camp I went to a couple of years ago. The last day was happy, sad, exciting, fun and bittersweet at the same time which that day extra special. The camp that I went to is called Osrui, and it is a Jewish overnight camp in the middle of Oconomowoc Wisconsin (if you pronounce that right on your first try I'll be impressed). My first year at Osrui was when I was eight years old and as soon as I stepped out of my car for the first time I fell in love. During the school year, I would be constantly counting down the days till I would be back at camp again. Since I live in Champaign Illinois, and...