Journal Four- Alyssa

     In the chapter, "born bad" Esperanza tells us about her Aunt Lupa. She is pretty. Dark, and good to look at. Aunt Lupa was once a swimmer, and now she is sick. An important theme from this chapter is the game. The game is to pick someone everyone knows, then imitate them and everyone had to guess who it was. It started off with imitating famous people, then turned to imitating people around town that they all knew. One day they picked Aunt Lupa. The feeling I got from the description of them playing the game was shame. "the day we played the game, we didn't know she was going to die." Esperanza says. Because Aunt Lupa became blind Esperanza would read to her and she listened to every book. 
     "But I think diseases have no eyes, they just pick with a dizzy finger, anyone, just anyone." This is where I thought the writing was at its best, because I can relate.

     I had several influences in my life growing up. The one I remember being the most influential was Sarah Simmons. We were best friends from elementary school all the way till the end of middle school. She lived in the same neighborhood as my grandparents, I was at my grandparents most of my life. Sarah was my age and she had a sister the same age as my older sister. We spent a lot of time with them. Her parents were great. We got off the bus at their house often and worked on homework and ate dinner. They also got us into going to church with them. We liked church a lot. I even got up in front of the congregation with my best friend, Sarah and sang a song called "El Shaddai." Although we got older and we went different directions in life. I will always remember her and her family and be grateful from the love they showed me.