Skip to main content

Why has Jess gotten up early every morning in the summer?

In Chapter 1, one of the first things we learn about Jess is this: he has gotten up early every morning in the summer to practice running, so that he can be the fastest kid in his grade when school starts again.



He had gotten up early every day all summer to run. He figured if he worked at it - and Lord, had he worked-he could be the fastest runner in the fifth grade when school opened up. He had to be the fastest-not one of the fastest or next to the fastest, but the fastest. The very best.



Jess first waits until he hears his dad's truck start up, so he knows that his dad will be out of the way, and while his mom and sisters are still in bed, Jess dresses quickly and sneaks outside. Then he runs for all he's worth, pushing himself hard to get faster and stronger.


Running is a big deal among the other kids at school; it's a way that the kids compete against each other and determine among themselves who's the strongest and who's the best. Because Jess has never been a fantastic student or an excellent athlete in other sports, either, and because he's most interested in sitting quietly and drawing alone, he feels a need to excel in the races at school so that he can make a name for himself and improve his reputation. During the previous school year, Jess had won a race against some other kids and had a taste of the glory and admiration from others that this victory provided. He wants more of it!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more