The number of quirky habits I gained from the AP Language and Composition class I took during my junior year of high school are unbelievable: not being able to read my Time magazines without annotating them, rethinking people’s sentences in my head, frantically writing down snippets of language that make me smile during the day; but none so much as one.
For me, that class was the beginning of a new life, a new way of looking at things. My teacher was a high school cheerleader (and still so at heart), who graduated with a 2.-something GPA, ready to wander for years before deciding on a career. She was the one that taught me how to write.
Traditionally for AP, our essays were scored on a 1 – 9 scale, 3 being the failing grade (1’s and 2’s were off topic), and 9 being the best. My teacher became so frustrated with our class 
that she told us we were all “on the boat to the island of suck.” We remained there for a couple of weeks until one day she stood up to the board and drew what is in the picture on the right. It is her explanation of what essays “look like.”
The drawing of the 9 essay struck me the most. A 9 essay is unlike any other essay—a completely different shape and feel. People who write 9 essays “take risks,” but do so in a way that fulfills all the rules but is so “unique” it journeys outside them anyway (AP English Language and Composition 9-Point Rubric). Their essays are a result of their individualized ideas, given in mastery of diction and syntax. The product is something “magical” that takes the reader full circle and lands them right back where they started with an entirely new perspective. You might think of them as the best, but they aren’t. 8’s are the best. 9’s are removed—entirely unable to relate—they are so fantastic.
I can’t recall who it was that begged the thought, but I found myself realizing one day, “Wow… he’s a 9!” I was astounded. As ambiguous as the moment was, it gave me a new way of looking things. We all know of the most famous 9's. Lance Armstrong; Abraham Lincoln; Julia Roberts; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Audrey Hepburn; Adolph Hitler; Albert Einstein; Pablo Picasso; Beethoven; Bill Gates; and my personal favorite: Ben Franklin. These are only eleven people who revolutionized society through their art. I’m sure you can think of a 9 in your own area of interest. Their work is made of the same “stuff” as others—just alike as the stringing together of the same words in all literature—but is unlike because of the morphing of knowledge, talent, and ingenuity. They do what no one else could ever replicate with purity.
What dazzles us the most about 9’s, though, was put best by Isaac Asimov when he said, speaking of his own art, “I write for the same reason I breathe—because if I didn’t, I would die.” They make it look effortless, so they often go under appreciated. They seem untouchable, so they are often dismissed as visionary. And yet they are just people doing what they do. It might surprise you to hear that we come across beautifully 9 people in our every day lives. They do ordinary in an extraordinary way. They are those who I admire most.
Fireworks at the Waterfront in Portland--4th of July:
Jenny, Ernest and I went into Portland for the fireworks show done at Waterfront Park--the second largest in the Northwest. We wandered around the fenced off Blues Festival area where we thought the fireworks would be from (admittance by pay only), finally plopping down in the nearest public area we could. We were delighted to find that one of the two boats shooting off the fireworks was right in front of us! How fabulous is that.
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