MANDATORY BLOG ENTRY # 2

When I was Garbage by Allison Crews is a very moving piece starting from the first sentence. She begins by writing to her audience of a time when she skipped a week of school because she was scared of what other people might think of her because she was so humiliated and sick about the whole situation in the 10^th grade. Crews’ points out what the consequences were in result of missing school, which was a two-week, in-school suspension. Even worse she described how bad the six by twenty foot room was when she was confined to nothing but a boxed-in desk, instead of being at home where she needed to be when she was five weeks pregnant. I couldn’t believe that she was only allowed to go to the bathroom twice daily while being pregnant-that is torture for her and her baby. The symbolism with the “JUST SAY NO” poster that was hanging crookedly on the wall is a perfect representation of what a room that a facility member of a school would put a student who was in trouble for ditching class. It reminded me of my own “sex-education” or “health” class that had multiple posters on the wall with similar sayings and pictures. I also remember facts about sex-education, specifically teen pregnancy and diseases because that was the most serious issue in society in this generation. They probably accepted the commonplace that people who ditch class are more probable to try and abuse drugs and alcohol. This story is an eye-opening experience that Crews went through, being in school and failing with a fetus inside of her belly with sicknesses that bring her to a miserable condition that is unbearable. Crews is really good at describing her situations with precision of exactly what needs to be heard. Her audience feels sympathy as she struggles through school and dealing with her boy friend. With fights and all the other issues that arose in her life, she was having a baby regardless and there was nothing that was going to stop it when she passed the point where she assumed that the baby was going to be aborted, then adopted, then the decision “ I am keeping the baby”. Then before she new it all of the struggles that had haunted her vanished as her water broke and she began to have contractions. After that point, there was no turning back and nothing else mattered for Allison. The ending was very intense as she explained her experience at the hospital when going through the processes of giving birth to her newborn baby. After the labor was over she was blessed with a 24 pound, 8-month-old son that she was able to spend her days at home raising him. It was really meaningful because after all of the negative stereotypes of a pregnant teen mother, after she witnessed her son come into this world she gained a whole new perspective on the situation and matured greatly. Allison Crews was not garbage, she was a mother.