ISKL+Natalie

**Introduction:**
Include some or all of the following, as well as a link to your blog: first name, what you like to do in and out of school, favourites (food, sport, hobby, TV show, video game, etc.), places visited, future plans, claim to fame.

HI! My name is Natalie but you can call me Natalie. I love music so I play the piano and sing. I used to play the flute but I quit after the 1st year. And of course, being a girl, I LUUVVV to shop! If you want to know what I look like.... I'm small (one of the smallest in my grade.) I have dirty blond hair with highlights and have really white skin compared to my family. I was born in North Carolina, USA but my heritage comes from Italy and I'm about a 1/5 of Sweedish because my grandfather is part sweedish. I like sports... Mostly track and field but since the muscles in my knee aren't strong enough, my knee slips out of the socket sometimes and it mostly happens when I'm running and it sometimes is really bad that I can't walk... That's why I can't run. I like swimming but I HATE chlorine. My favorite show is "Friends." I've been living in Malaysia for 7 years. I would really like to grow up to have a job in the music career. I must say that I don't have the best grades but if you ask my friends to describe me they probably would say "Crazy... Wacky... Funny... And Wacky!"

**Paste your story here:**
Sorry it's a little um.... long... :)

Tobacco crisis!!!

“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!” My alarm screamed as if it were saying “get your lazy @$$ out of bed!” I tried to hit the snooze button but was too lazy to open my eyes or move my arm. I let the alarm sit there while my mom rushed up to the room. “Jessica!!! GET UP! IT’S SCHOOL IN 15 MINUTES!” That was I in my early years. Oh! By the way, my name is Jessica. Anyway… I was a very stupid kid. I had terrible grades, terrible attitude and took everything as a joke. I also had TERRIBLE influence. See the thing is that I always wanted to be the popular kid. I would do everything from being the class clown, to missing all my classes, putting too much gel in my hair… Everything. So one day I was washing my hands in the bathroom and suddenly Anne from home group comes in. She didn’t seem to notice I was there. She took a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and took her lighter from the other. She looked so cool, blowing her magnificent cigarette… So I thought. Soon I was smoking. Well… I was trying to. See, my mom was a chain smoker and if you don’t know what that means, it’s when you are soo addicted that you crave a cigarette every second. So a lot of the times when she would start outside smoking with her friends she would light a cigarette and then go to the kitchen to get a snack or water. Since she needed to smoke she would light another one at the kitchen. When she got back to her friends she would put the cigarette in the ash tray and there laid a perfect cigarette that was barely used. She would put these cigarettes in the trash can… Now, since I was sooo stupid, I would dig in the trash can and get the cigarettes, light them, bring them to school, and smoke in the bathroom where no teachers would go. I might have thought I looked cool but it slowly got serious. I got addicted, and fast. My parents found out but nothing could stop me. I would hide my cigarettes from them, only smoke at school, everything possible to still have that disgusting piece of $!*& in my mouth. I grew older and graduated with the white shape of poo in my mouth. I had been smoking for 7 years by then. (I started in 6th grade and was now 1 year into college.) My friends would threaten to do stuff like kick me out of their plays or just ignore me but they would never follow through. I became a teacher; married a man named Jack, and had 2 boys. But when I got pregnant I suddenly got worried. What would happen if I kept smoking and my too little boys, Anthony and Joseph, died? What would happen to them? I soon started joining classes of how to stop. They did have the hypnotists but I was always worried if they could never snap me back into reality. With the motivation of my friends, family, and soon-to-be sons I quit while cherishing the wonderful journey of birth. Now it’s time to get to the present. Now I am 35 and Anthony and Joseph are in 2nd grade. Since my teacher that helped me quit smoking was amazing, I was inspired. I got a job as a person to help people stop smoking. After all, I smoked for 20 years and I have never been happier without that piece of trash in my mouth. I have 10 people attaining my class every day but Sundays are the most… well… there isn’t really such word for it. I have Emily, Edward, Alice, Romano, Tyler, Oliver, Alistair, Brian, Donna, and Jeffrey. But it was Edward that bothered me the most. He had a family, 2 girls and a boy, and a wife. He was a doctor and he simply admitted that the only reason he was going to these classes was that his family convinced him. It sort of… upset me to know that someone would have to be forced by his own family. He never seemed to share how his experience was or how he is “trying” to quit. It sort of got me upset. I mean… 1. What is the point of spending you money on something that you don’t use to your advantage? 2. If you are not even the tiniest bit eager to save some money and your life you are probably a &*$%#. 3. You are an idiot for starting and I hate you because of it!!!!!!!!!!! ☹

I told him that. I told him #1, #2, and #3… Well… I didn’t exactly tell him the exact same thing… When the lesson ended I went up to him and said “Hi Edward, I was just wondering if you could come and speak up sometime soon because it seems like you aren’t really into the fact that you can save your life.” He nodded and walked out the door. I felt really hurt to know that I spent my whole life studying to make people smarter and it made no impact on those who really needed it. I put some thought into it and called the house. Edward’s wife picked up (her name was Suzy) and she seemed very sweet and nice. I asked if Edward was doing the things that I told him to do and asking if he was using the nicorette I gave him. Her voice was a little… Angry and annoyed when I told her about Edward’s classes. She told me that he never smoked and she did. I got a little confused and annoyed too. The next day I asked Edward about it. He didn’t seem very happy that I brought the topic up but he wasn’t that upset. He finally looked at me with wobbling courage and told me about his wife. She had been smoking for 30 years and her lungs were so polluted that she had had a few heart attacks lately. He got nervous and upset about how I had reacted. He had been taking the classes to try to help his wife. He had snuck the nicorette into her normal gum and took some of her cigarettes away from her when she didn’t know they were there. But they kept on showing up in that hidden draw. I suddenly knew how my parents felt when they found me smoking in the backyard. I was ashamed but also determined to make it easier for those who had had it hard. The next class I made an idea of starting a campaign. We would go over the USA making speeches of how we could stop this horrid mess. In weeks we were on the airplane flying to North Carolina, my home town. We went from country to country, city to city. We each came up to the podium and made our speech of how we had been in the break down lane but someone had come to the rescue and let us get back on the road again. In months we were famous and were given the name of “tobacco fighters.” We loved making people healthy and happy and before you knew it, Edward’s wife was starting our classes, inspired by our determination. The campaign slowly ended but we were still proud to have saved hundreds of lives. Many stopped and we were famous by then. I bought a building and opened my own investment of how to stop. The students from Sunday all became teachers and I am still proud of our journey. And here I am on my computer typing this up. It’s all worth it in the end.

**Questions for Peer Reviewers**
(Think in terms of questions you would like to ask the author.)

1. Think of plot—is it original? (If an adaptation, is it creative or interesting to you?) What suggestions do you have for the author(s)?

2. Think about problems that the characters face. Are there complications that add enough suspense, tension, or interest? Is there a climax that satisfies you? Is the resolution satisfying? What could be added or changed?

3. Think of characterization—are the characters life-like? Are characters likable and enjoyable? Do we get a good sense of character from many of these: description, dialogue, narrator's opinion, discussion from other characters, the character’s own actions?

4. Think of imagery and details. Do they help you //see// and //hear// and //experience// the story? What details would you like to see in the next revision of the story?

5. What areas of the story need the most improvement? What suggestions do you have for the author?