Competitions

These past 3 days, I've been busy with intra-school competitions for this "English Month." I joined the Photo-Essay competition along with the Short Story Writing competition that had just finished a few hours earlier.

 

If there's one thing I know about me joining competitions, it's that I am not good with joining competitions in my 2015 version. I'm unprepared, scared, and most of all, I don't know what the hell to do. I mean, seriously, based on my performance, I suck at competitions.

 

 

The Photo-Essay Competition

Everyone had brought their own 1/2 illustration board meanwhile I only have 2 1/8 illustration boards, the other one was originally for the contest and the other one for my physics project. But, since I didn't pay attention and I didn't see the mechanics, I thought I was supposed to bring a 1/8 illustration board when, in reality, I was to bring a 1/2 illustration board.

 

The other thing about the photo essay is that I didn't bring any art materials—especially colored paper—although I was not to blame for that. T. Jeff only asked us to bring 1/2 illustration board, glue/tape, and a marker, he didn't tell us if we could bring art materials or not, so I figured that they were not needed. When the competition started, I was so shocked to see that my fellow competitors had brought a 1/2 illustration board and they had their own pre-decorated art paper with pencils, different kinds of glue, and stickers, I think.

 

Meanwhile, I'm just there looking at how they use their colorful art paper and with their fantastic photographs while, on my side, I only have my semi-blurry and horrible shots along with a roll of electric tape, which was supposed to be for my physics project.

 

It was horrible; it was a train wreck; an attempt gone wrong.

 

 

 

 

The Short Story Writing Competition

As for this competition, I think I handled this one pretty great. We were tasked with making a story, under the genre of "fantasy" (kings, queens, kingdoms, etc.) and it must be a very short story. We all had a laugh about a question I had and then we started working.

 

I made up my story in 10 or 15 minutes and then I thought for a title in 3 minutes. The title was "One More Lifetime" and it tells the story of me, a lowly servant in this faraway kingdom who caters to everyone's favors as best as he can and can't say no to requests that were being asked from him by the people in the kingdom.

 

One day, the king asked a request from the servant and then he immediately accepted it. The servant would be the main servant of the king's eldest daughter, and in exchange, the servant could have anything in the kingdom, excluding power and authority, he can only have material possessions, but not the personal possessions of others.

 

On his first day, he went to the castle and then went to the princess' room. They introduce themselves to one another and then he agrees to be her servant for the rest of his life.

 

Like most romantic clichés, the guy (the servant) eventually falls in love with the girl (the princess) and then they start dating and eventually get married.

 

Here is where the twist in the story comes in:

 

A few years after their marriage, the king and queen both decide to pass on the kingdom to the eldest daughter of the king and her newlywed husband. On their coronation day, the princess walks down the aisle for her to be crowned the new queen of the kingdom. As she was walking, she gets shot in the back of the head by an archer and the arrow goes straight through her head and instantly kills her. The people in the kingdom were shocked and they panicked, and so did the king and queen. However, even though the princess was killed, the coronation continued nevertheless with the king's second eldest daughter, Cortana, was crowned queen along with her husband (which is a different guy, of course).

 

Queen Cortana quickly banished the servant from the kingdom because she thought that the servant planned to kill his newlywed wife in order to take over the kingdom. Of course, the servant wouldn't even thinking of doing that and he was innocent. The servant loved his princess so much and no matter what, he never thought of bad things about her, nor did he see her in a bad light.

 

But, like most people, he was blamed for a crime he didn't even commit in the first place. He faces the consequence of being banished from the kingdom and he was not allowed to return again. He was sent packing after Cortana ordered the knights to seize his most valuable possessions.

 

A few months pass and, on his travels, he sees this old man who is trapped inside a well. He helps the old man out of the well and then the old man turns out to be a wizard. The wizard knows the servant's story just by looking at him and then he grants him the ability to go back in time and to traverse space.

 

The servant immediately goes back in time in order to stop the princess from being killed. On his first attempt, he tries to get a shield from a nearby guard and goes to the princess and puts the shield on her. Unfortunately, the arrow goes through the shield and kills the princess, and then the servant was banished. The servant tries again, this time by getting two shields. The servant blocks the arrow, although a second arrow shot the princess, the servant was banished afterwards. The servant kept trying different methods and going back again in time to try new ones again and again. Until, on one attempt, he finally decides to push the princess aside and he gets hit by the arrow and he was instantly killed.

 

The servant wakes up in the middle of space, for some reason. He doesn't know where he is or where could his princess been, or what happened to her. He just woke up somewhere in outer space. Since he still has his powers to travel through space, he spends eternity going to different galaxies, star nebulas, and planets in order to find his princess and his kingdom.

 

The servant could travel through space freely and not have to eat or sleep. He didn't have to age and he never got hurt by going near suns. He was able to freely roam vast nebulas with ease. Although he lost his ability to travel back in time.

 

The servant spent almost an eternity looking for Earth, although he wasn't able to do so. The servant soon harnesses all of his power and travels back to the coronation day, at the break of dawn. Since this was the servant's last and final attempt, the servant decided to bring a lot of guns and wear armor under coat to protect him. In all of his attempts, he never tried to use force as the servant never wanted to use brute force.

 

The coronation day starts and he sees the archer and his whole group around the castle. He orders the guards to kill the archers with no mercy and kills the 7 archers inside the castle. After killing all of the archers, the coronation day continued as they crowned the servant as the new king and the princess as the queen.

 

The story ends with the narrator later telling to the reader that he was the prince and that he has lived a good life so far.

 

 

 

The end.