My Relatively Boring Slice of Life

Hey everyone, it’s me, Justin. This is my first Slice of Life from the beginning of the year. I chose it because it was really crappy at the beginning of the year. Here's the unrevised (aka bad) version first:

“SAFE!” It was 10:30 A.M. in South Corning, New York, and my baseball teammate, Pierce, had just beat out the throw to first. The score was 5-5, and we were deadlocked with the team from Corning-Painted Post in the fifth inning. The brisk fall day was cold by Upstate New York standards, but it felt nearly frigid, as it was the coldest day in a while, with summer recently ending. It was now my turn to bat. As I walked up to the plate from the dugout, an especially freezing gust of wind blew. For me, this felt like a bad omen. I was even more nervous now than before, as there were two outs, and my team was counting on me. I stepped into the sandy batter’s box and took a glance at the pitcher. He was 14, according to others on the team. As the pitcher prepared to throw, a bee landed on the inside of my helmet. “A bee?” I thought, “How can there be a bee in this situation?” Fortunately, the bee quickly flew away. The pitch came. CRACK! Went the bat as I swung through the ball. It zoomed into right field.

Now it’s still crappy, but it has less run-on sentences. 10/10. Basically, all I did to revise it was reduce the run-on sentences and add more adjectives. I also added more details and all that stuff. I didn’t really have to make any GUMS changes, fortunately. Okay, here it is. The official revised version. Don’t be mean in the comments. Mean people aren’t nice.

“SAFE!”

It was 10:30 A.M. on in South Corning, New York.  My baseball teammate, Pierce, had just beat out the throw to first base. The score was 5-5 in the fifth inning, and my team was deadlocked with the team from Corning-Painted Post. The autumn day was simply chilly by Upstate New York standards. However, it felt almost frigid. It was the coldest day in a while, with the summer having come to a close. I began to step up to the batter’s box with the sienna dirt under my cleats. As I reached the plate, a glacial gust of wind blew through the field. This felt like a bad omen. I started to become even more nervous than I was previously. There were two outs, and my team was counting on me, so much that my nickname could easily have been “Fingers,” or even “Abacus.” I got into my stance and took a quick glance at the Corning pitcher, who towered over all of his teammates. Even though he was two years older than me, he looked like he could easily have been playing for an MLB team. Right before he began his windup, a bee landed on the inside of my helmet. “Just my luck,” I thought. Only I would have a bee land on me in such an important situation. The bee seemed to remain there for eternity, but by the time the pitch came, it had finally flown away. I redirected my attention to the ball, which was whizzing past me at a blazing speed. “STRIKE!” called the umpire. I gritted my teeth and decided to focus my attention on the next pitch.

“CRACK!” went the bat as the ball sailed off of it and into center field.

Justin Heitzman wishes he could talk about himself in the third person in this “About the Author” section. Sadly, he can’t. So he will do it in the first person, somewhat reluctantly. Once we offered to exile Leland, he agreed.

Hi guys, my name is Justin. I am probably better than you at life, but you already knew that. I have three cats (possibly four, one might be so fat that she’s considered two by now) and one dog. I also have about 30 fish (long story). As a student, I tend to procrastinate a lot (I’m writing this on Thursday, 6/18) and put a lot things in parentheses but I still somehow manage to get pretty good grades. Except in Tech. Tech is evil. As for English, last year I was amazing at English. This year, I remain amazing at English (and extremely arrogant, too). This year, however, I have been able to add more of a “voice” to my writing. This was my main improvement over the course of the year.

Adios! Au revoir! Hedjå!

-Justin

P.S. Sanic is love, Sanic is life. Look it up.

P.P.S. Illuminati confirmed. Look it up.