write an essay about a day i will never forget

Essay on the Day I will never Forget in My Life

Our life is a mixture of good and bad experiences. I think there must be something in everyone’s lives that is unforgettable. It can be either a good one or a bad one. This experience never gets deleted from our memories and remains alive throughout our life. It can also be a life-changing event for many of us. I am sure that every one of you would have a day or memorable event in your life that is difficult to forget. I also have few such memories in my mind but one among them is something that I can never forget in my life.

Short and Long Essay on The Day I will never Forget in My Life in English

10 lines essay on the day i will never forget in my life (100 – 120 words).

1) Some days either happy or sad leave a lifelong impression on our minds.

2) The day I will never forget in my life was when I left the city where I was born.

3) My father was transferred to a different city.

4) I was very sad on that day to leave my house.

5) The last goodbye to my friends was very painful.

6) I missed everyone very much along the way.

7) The feeling of seeing this surrounding for the last time made me sad.

8) I didn’t even take lunch that day.

9) I cried very much and asked my parents not to leave the place.

10) By remembering that day I still become sad.

Essay 1 (250 Words)

Introduction

Life is full of different types of experiences. Everyday passing in our life is not the same. Moreover, is not possible for us to remember every day of our life but there are days or moments of life that are memorable. It is not easy for us to forget that day or the event. The happening of any beautiful or sad event makes that day to be unforgettable from our memories.

The day could be a life-changing moment

There are special moments in everyone’s life. These moments make the day to be the one that we could never forget in our life. These moments could be a bad or good experience. These moments are life-changing moments in the life of many people. We have heard people saying that this incident changed my life totally. It could be something good like getting success, being awarded, finding love, marriage, or bad like death, accident, getting to know about some incurable disease, etc. The reason can be many but the effect of that incident is long-lasting and that day cannot be wiped out from our memory easily.

Complete lockdown due to the outbreak of covid-19 – A day that I could never forget

The days were passing and we were busy in the preparation of the festival of Holi in March 2020. Suddenly there was news shown on the television that state lockdown has been imposed for two days. Later this lockdown was converted into a nationwide lockdown on 25th March 2020. I never had experienced the lockdown before this happened. Everything was stopped in a moment and this kind of situation has never happened before. Therefore this day became an everlasting memory in the life of many people among us.

We cannot go back to the past and live any moment that we want. The memories of these days help us in remembering the same and making that moment alive for us.

I have provided the experience of the never forgetting day of my life in the form of a long essay below. I think it might give you an idea about writing an essay on this topic.

Essay 2 (950 Words) – Unforgettable Moment in My Life Essay

Days and times fly by so fast. Every day in our life is not alike. If we think about our past days it is not easy for us to remember every past day. There are some days that we cannot forget easily and it becomes an everlasting memory for us. We either get excited or depressed when we remind ourselves of the everlasting event of life. It depends upon our experience.

What is an Unforgettable Memory?

I hope nobody in this world has ever thought that any normal day will become an everlasting memory for them. This is such a moment of our life that remains in our memories till we are alive. It can be a good or bad memory. If it is a happy memory we want it to be continued throughout our life ever while if it is sad we never want it to happen again in our life. In both cases, the event becomes unforgettable for us. When we ever face the question about explaining a day that we can never forget, this is the event that first comes to our mind.

My Experiences: Unforgettable Days in My Life

I want to share with you the memories of a day that I can never forget in my life. I really wish this didn’t happen to anyone else in this world. I really become sad whenever I recall the incident. It was a normal day like other days in routine life. I woke up early in the morning and was ready to go to school. Everything went in an easy way as usual. My classes were over and after spending some time with my friends I returned back to my home. I did not go to the coaching classes on that day as I was a little tired and was not feeling well.

In the evening, I was having tea-time with my family. Suddenly someone knocked on my door. She was an aunt in my neighborhood. She told me that one of your school students has committed suicide and the case has come under my husband’s supervision for the postmortem. I was a little sad after hearing this news but continued my activities further.

The Shocking News – There was a phone call on my father’s mobile phone at that time as I was not having my personal mobile phone. I was shocked by what I heard. The student that had committed suicide was none other than my best friend. I really could not understand what to do at that time. Even I could never believe what I heard. Every time I remembered about the afternoon time that we spent together. I never thought that this was the last time I was meeting with her. I could not cry at that moment as I was shocked after hearing this news. I was not having the courage to visit her house or see the dead body. Since it was suicide it became a police case. We have been questioned two or three times in our school premises by the police officers in the investigation of the case.

Later it was confirmed that she was suffering from depression. I knew about this but never thought that she would take the decision of ending her life. She was a meritorious student in the school. There was one day holiday as condolence for her soul. Not only that day but the whole month has been very bad for me. I could not sleep peacefully for many nights.

My friend committed suicide just before one day of her birthday. I was very depressed and sad because I lost her and at the same time was very angry also. I never thought of her to be such a coward to commit suicide. Later I tried to console myself by the thought that it was destiny and could never be changed.

Effects of that Day in My Life – It is because of that day in my life I never tried to make anybody my best friend in my life. It is because everything happened suddenly and I was shocked from inside. Moreover, a fear of losing someone precious from my life has developed in my mind from that day. I think I cannot give her place to anyone in my life. She is still and always will be with me in my memories. I find it very hard to remove the memories of this day in my life.

Are Unforgettable Memories Special for Us?

Man is the most blessed form of the creation of god on this earth. It is because we have been provided with the brain that has a memorizing capacity. The event that we remember becomes happy or sad memories for us. The memories are always special either it is happy or sad because it makes us think about our past events of life. It may happen that some of them would cherish us with a smile and some may bring tears to our eyes. The most important thing is that it connects us with our past events and people that had lived in our previous life experiences and thus these memories are special for us.

The death day of my best friend is a never forgetting memory in my life to date. I cannot forget this because this happened suddenly. This is the day when I realized the value of a friend especially a best friend in my life. I hope that she would be happy wherever she is now and god may give a lot of courage to her parents to endure this loss and pain.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

Ans . It is the diary of past experiences of life.

Ans . It is because they have perceived perfectly by our senses.

Ans . The memories while sleeping gets more powered and stable in our mind.

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50, 250 & 400 Words Essay on A Day I Will Never Forget In English

Table of Contents

Introduction

The experiences we have in life are a mix of positive and bad. Almost everyone has something unforgettable in their lives. There are two types of bad ones: good ones and bad ones. No matter how long we live, this experience will never be forgotten. The event can also change our lives forever. There must be at least one memorable day or event in every person’s life that they can never forget. It is one of the memories I will never be able to forget in my life too.

50 Words Essay on A Day I Will Never Forget In English

 There are some days that remain in our minds forever, whether they are happy or sad. The day I left the city where I was born will always be etched in my memory. A new city was assigned to my father. The day I had to leave my house was a very sad day for me.

Leaving my friends for the last time was a very painful experience. It was very hard to say goodbye to everyone along the way. This was my last time seeing these surroundings, and I felt sad. My lunch was the only thing I ate that day. It was very hard for me to find words to describe how much I cried and begged my parents not to leave. I still feel sad when I remember that day.

250 Words Essay on A Day I Will Never Forget In English

Sunny and hot weather greeted us that day. My mother called me inside to eat something while I was lying on my back in the front yard. I heard my mother gently call out, “Come, take a bite of this sandwich or two,” as she gently beckoned me to take a bite.

In general, I was a bit of an uncontrollable child when I was growing up, or perhaps you could say naughty. My response was to pretend that I wasn’t aware of what she said. She just said: “Okay, then.” as she is a clever mother. You’ll need to buy bread, I think. The way she said it this time wasn’t so gentle. Due to my failure to respond when I was called, I received this punishment.

Thus, I hurriedly went inside. Unfortunately, it was too late. My mother already had the money in her hands. Her grin spread across her face as she said: “Better now than later when you get hungry…” I began to frown, saying: “Hayi, hayi, hayi, mama!” This means: “No, no, no, mama!”.

The wonderful grin on my mother’s face turned into a huge, horrible frown! Her voice was the most horrendous I’ve ever heard. The way she spoke to me sounded like a lion roaring at its prey: “Amanda, don’t test or I will…”.

In fact, I ran out of the door before she could finish her sentence. I was crossing the street in a hurry when a car slammed into me out of nowhere. The driver asked with concern. “Are you all right?” the driver asked concernedly. The car hit me like a bull tackling a matador in a bullfight, and I’m not sure if those were his exact words.

It had taken me a long time to realize what had happened because I had run like a horse all the way home. This incident has never been brought up with my mother. I found it strange that all my mother noticed was that I wasn’t hungry anymore. The only thing she said was: “Did you eat from this bread, little one? It made us both laugh. My memories of this day will last a lifetime.

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400 Words Essay on A Day I Will Never Forget In English

It was a happy childhood for me, thanks to my loving parents and the big brown house my parents lived in. A big brown house and two loving parents made me a happy child. I used to spend hours playing hide-and-seek or tagging with my friends in my backyard during the summer. As children, we would pretend to be explorers searching for old treasures or knights battling evil dragons to save princesses.

A brown and white trim was also seen on the house next door. We felt like we were in an enchanted forest with its huge trees shading our backyard. The snow that accumulated at the edge of our yards in the winter would be used to make snowmen. In the end, we made angels by piling all our clothes on top of one another instead of making snowmen out of them.

Laughter echoed off the walls as I ran up and down the stairs. I used to play this game with my sister. Running up and down the stairs was a game we would take turns playing. It was a race between the bottom and top to see who could catch the other. Getting caught meant going up and down again.

During our daily activities, we never paid attention to how much energy we used or how it affected our hearts, lungs, and muscles. It just seemed like fun to us. When he was a boy, my dad used to tell me stories. Sitting there and listening to him tell me stories from his childhood, I would hear stories about my dad as a boy.

Whenever he talked about fishing with his friends, he’d tell me about it. At times, they caught something, but at other times, they had nothing to show for their efforts. Whenever he spoke too much at school, he got into trouble, and if the teacher saw him chewing gum in class, he got into even more trouble.

The stories he told always made me laugh. His life had never been better. One of the most memorable days of my life. His life was at its best during that time. It will always be a memorable day for me. Looking up at him from the front row, I was in the front row. When he said, “This is the best day of my whole life,” he looked directly at me.

Conclusion,

A moment cannot be relived in the past. Remembering these days helps us make those moments alive for us and keep them alive in our minds.

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Narrative Essay on The Day I never forget

Narrative essay generator.

There are moments in life that leave an indelible mark on our hearts and minds, shaping us into who we are. These experiences, often unexpected, can change our perspective, teach us valuable lessons, or simply remind us of the beauty and fragility of life. One such day that I will never forget occurred during the summer before my final year of high school, a day that started like any other but ended up teaching me about courage, loss, and the power of community.

The Morning Calm

The day began with the usual tranquility of a summer morning. The sun’s golden rays gently pierced through my window, casting a warm glow across my room. Birds chirped harmoniously, creating a melody that signaled the start of a new day. I woke up feeling refreshed and eager to enjoy my day off from school and part-time job responsibilities. Little did I know, this day would be far from ordinary.

The Unexpected Call

As I was enjoying my breakfast, the phone rang, shattering the morning’s peace. It was my friend Alex, whose voice trembled with urgency. “There’s a huge fire at the community center!” he exclaimed. My heart skipped a beat. The community center was not just a building; it was the heart of our small town, a place where people of all ages came together for various activities and support. Without a second thought, I told Alex I would meet him there.

The Scene at the Community Center

Arriving at the community center, I was met with a scene of chaos and desperation. Thick plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, and flames devoured the structure that had stood as a beacon of unity in our community. Firefighters battled the blaze, but the fire’s ferocity was overwhelming. Community members gathered, many in tears, as they watched decades of memories turn to ash.

Joining the Effort

Despite the despair that hung heavy in the air, there was a sense of unity among the onlookers. People started organizing, offering whatever help they could. I joined a group of volunteers helping to move equipment and salvageable items from the parts of the building not yet engulfed by flames. The heat was intense, and the smoke made it difficult to see and breathe, but the collective determination to save what we could, fueled our efforts.

A Lesson in Courage and Loss

As the day wore on, the reality of the situation sank in. The fire, sparked by an electrical fault, had consumed much of the community center. The loss was not just physical; it was emotional. Programs for children, support groups for the elderly, and spaces for community gatherings were gone. Yet, amid the loss, there was courage. The bravery of the firefighters, risking their lives to contain the fire, and the resilience of the community, coming together in the face of adversity, taught me about the strength of the human spirit.

The Power of Community

In the days that followed, the true power of community became evident. Fundraisers were organized, and plans were made to rebuild the community center. People from all walks of life contributed in whatever way they could, showing that the spirit of our community was not lost but strengthened by the tragedy. This collective effort highlighted the importance of community support and resilience.

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Compose a narrative essay about a student's first day at a new school

Develop a narrative essay on a memorable school field trip.

The Day i Will Never Forget Essay 300 Words

It all began on a bright and sunny morning. I checked the mailbox, expecting the usual bills and junk mail. But there it was, a fancy envelope with my name written in fancy, curly letters. It was like finding a hidden treasure.

Table of Contents

The Day I Will Never Forget: A Story of Adventure and Friendship

The Curious Invitation

Inside the envelope, I found an invitation to a “Grand Adventure Day.” It had all these mysterious clues and riddles. It was like a puzzle waiting to be solved. The invitation said, “Meet me at the old oak tree in the park at noon.” My heart raced with excitement.

Meeting New Friends

Noon came quickly, and I arrived at the old oak tree. I was nervous and excited, not knowing who I would meet. It was like the start of an epic quest in a storybook. To my surprise, there were two other kids waiting there, just as puzzled as I was.

Teamwork and Puzzle Solving

We introduced ourselves and decided to work together to solve the riddles from the invitation. It was like forming a superhero team. Each clue led us to a different part of the park, and together, we cracked codes, followed maps, and laughed a lot.

Unearthing Hidden Treasures

Our adventure took us to places we had never explored before. We crawled through bushes, climbed trees, and even dug in the dirt like archaeologists. It was like discovering hidden treasures at every turn. We found shiny rocks, old coins, and even a message in a bottle.

Overcoming Challenges

As the day went on, we faced challenges that tested our teamwork and problem-solving skills. It was like a series of mini quests. Sometimes we got stuck, but we never gave up. We encouraged each other and found creative solutions.

A Surprise Picnic

After hours of adventuring, we stumbled upon a secret clearing in the woods. To our amazement, there was a picnic set up with sandwiches, fruit, and lemonade. It was like a reward for our hard work. We sat on the checkered blanket, feeling grateful and hungry.

Bonding Through Stories

During our picnic, we shared stories about our lives. It was like opening a book of memories. We learned about each other’s hobbies, dreams, and even embarrassing moments. It felt like we had known each other forever.

The Sunset Serenade

As the day began to turn into evening, we decided to wrap up our adventure. But before we left, we gathered around a campfire someone had set up. It was like the perfect ending to a magical day. We sang songs, roasted marshmallows, and watched the sunset together.

The Promise of Tomorrow

Saying goodbye to my new friends was bittersweet. It was like finishing an incredible book and not wanting it to end. We exchanged contact information and promised to meet again for more adventures. As I walked home, I couldn’t stop smiling, knowing that the day I would never forget was just the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Conclusion: A Day of Adventure and Friendship

The day I will never forget was like a chapter from a storybook, filled with mystery, excitement, and new friendships. It taught me the power of teamwork, the joy of discovery, and the magic of unexpected adventures. I’ll cherish that day forever, and I can’t wait to see where the next adventure takes us.

Author’s Note:

I hope you enjoyed hearing about the day I will never forget! It’s like a special memory that reminds me of the magic that can happen when you step out of your comfort zone. If you have your own unforgettable day to share or want to chat about anything else, just let me know!

Hello! Welcome to my Blog StudyParagraphs.co. My name is Angelina. I am a college professor. I love reading writing for kids students. This blog is full with valuable knowledge for all class students. Thank you for reading my articles.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Moment — A Memory That I Will Never Forget

A Memory that I Will Never Forget

• Categories: Moment Personal Life

About this sample

Words: 625 |

Published: Sep 16, 2023

Words: 625 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

The setting, the journey, the encounter.

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• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life

500 Words Essay On Memorable Day of My Life

We have different types of days in our lives, some are ordinary while some are special. There are some days that get etched in our memories forever. Likewise, I also have a memorable day of my life that is very dear to me. The memories of this day are engraved in my heart and will remain so forever.

My Birthday- Memorable Day of My Life

My tenth birthday is the most memorable day of my life. It is a day I can never forget and I consider it to be the best birthday yet. The day started just like any other normal day. However, as it kept progressing, a lot of exciting things began to happen.

I woke up very early on my birthday because I had to dress up in casual clothes for school . The day before, all my candies were ready that I would distribute in the classroom.

My mother prepared my favourite breakfast and gave me a big chocolate bar for lunch as well. I went to school and the whole class sang for me and congratulated me. It was the turn to distribute sweets.

My best friend and I went to all the teachers to distribute toffees and we had a great time there. Moreover, it was an incredible feeling. My friends were all singing for me and eager to come to my birthday party later in the evening.

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My Birthday Party

The birthday at my school was memorable but the birthday party at my home made the day even more memorable. Also, my mother invited all my friends from school and the colony to the party.

I received so many presents and we played a lot of games. We played games like musical chairs, tag, egg-and-spoon races, and more. There were so many songs playing so everyone did a special dance too.

The highlight of my birthday party was definitely my huge birthday cake. As I love superheroes, my mother got the cake customized with the superhero theme. It was very tasty too and in my favourite flavour.

I spent a lot of time with my family and friends that day. Everyone liked the return gifts as well and went home with a big smile on their faces.

Conclusion of Essay on Memorable Day of My Life

Therefore, my tenth birthday is the most memorable day of my life. It has given me so many happy memories that will remain with me forever. That day makes me feel blessed and lucky to have all those things in my life.

FAQ on Essay on Memorable Day of My Life

Question 1: What is the meaning of a memorable day?

Answer 1:   When we say memorable, we refer to something that we cannot forget easily or something that left us excited. A memorable day is a day that one can recall easily as it is engraved in the memory.

Question 2: What can be an example of a memorable day?

Answer 2: Some people consider their birthday to be the most memorable day. While some consider it a family trip too. Similarly, some people may find their school picnic or fete to be the most memorable day.

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By Patrick Carpen: The Greatest Writer On Earth

A Day I Will Never Forget: Embarrassing Experience

Sadness, happiness, natural disaster, man made disaster, embarrassing experiences, triumphant experiences and the list goes on.

Here’s an example of how to write a short story on the title, “A Day I Will Never Forget” using the theme “embarrassing experience.”

A Day I Will Never Forget

The alarm clock woke me up suddenly. It was a mistake I had made last night to go partying with my friends. And as I shook the drowsiness off my tired body, I promised never to let my friends stray me like that again.

Can you believe that they gave me so much rum to drink and even marijuana to smoke? And that’s why I couldn’t wake up this morning!

Look at the time! It’s 8:30! And today is the day of my final exams! If I miss this exam, I’ll have to repeat an entire year. No! That can’t happen! I have just 15 minutes, but I’ll make it!

I ran to the kitchen and made a sandwich in a flash. Then I stuffed it down my throat in an instant. I gulped down a glass of juice and then ran to the bathroom. I scrubbed my teeth clean. I glanced at the clock. It read 8:40. I had just minutes before the bell. The shower poured on me as I rubbed the soap hurriedly on my body. After showering, it was 8:43. Just two minutes remaining! I flew out of the door and into the garage. My bag on my back, I mounted my bike and rode like a bat out of hell.

But why was everyone staring at me? Had they never seen anyone in a hurry before? My friends were calling out to me from across the street, but there was no time to answer them. Those idiots! If I pay attention to them, I will miss my exams!

The next minute, I rode into the school compound. It was quiet. No one was outside. Everyone was in the exam room. But I made it by just one minute. The examiners were sharing out papers. I parked my bike and walked in.

“Good morning,” I said, as the room grew deadly silent. The examiners stopped moving. But why was everyone staring at me? Why were those girls covering their mouths…their eyes wide in amazement!

Is this a dream? Am I a ghost?

Suddenly, there was a burst of laughter. Then Rosemary shouted, “Floyd, where is your clothes?!”

I looked down on my naked body.

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A Day I Will Never Forget Essay

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In preparing this short talk I worked out that I had spent over 17,000 days on the planet, but this is the story of the one day I will never ever forget. It was mid-July and the sky just after dawn was that pale duck egg blue with not a single cloud in sight which promised a perfect Midwest day: by afternoon that pale blue would change to a deeper almost turquoise hue and the perfect weather matched my perfect mood. I had just graduated from high school, had a part-time job at the local A& P and on this particular Saturday I had plans which matched the weather in their perfection. My father was celebrating his 50th birthday and that afternoon and evening, and we were having a huge family barbecue to celebrate: great uncles, great aunts, and uncles, and aunts, and cousins I'd not seen in years – they had arrived the night before and were sleeping all over our house, in tents in the garden, in sleeping bags in our summer house. But that was not the main source of my joy on that perfect summer morning. That evening I was taking Tanya Eriksson to the county fair, and it was from a dream of Tania that I woke just after dawn to find the big brown imploring eyes of my English springer spaniel Zippy staring into mine. He didn't normally sleep with me but the chaos caused by the gathering of the family clan meant that the ordinary rules of daily life had been suspended for the weekend. Without thinking, buoyed up by my glance outside at the sky and all the anticipated pleasure of the next 24 hours, I got straight out of bed, crept as quietly as I could through the sleeping house with Zippy in my wake full of purposefulness and energy – the kind of energy that you have when you know that you're taking Tania Eriksson to the county fair. In my eyes Tanya was the model, the zenith of female beauty: long red hair, piercing blue eyes, skin as pale as the moon, slim as a birch and with the most tantalising laugh of any woman I've ever known – before or since. Her face was often expressionless, but I could make her laugh, or at least I could in that perfect summer in the past. When she laughed, her eyes would light up, the soft skin around her eyes would wrinkle, the corners of her mouth would turn up, and I could only see a future in which my career, my vacation, my calling was to make Tanya laugh. I went to the kitchen and quickly downed a cup of coffee, Zippy happily following my every move. I had already decided on perfect start to this perfect day. I took the keys to my mother's Nissan and strolled down the driveway. I was going swimming with Zippy in the irrigation canal just out of town on the other side. It's a funny sensation when you drive through your home town early in the morning when most people are asleep. I liked it. I drove past the houses of friends from high school, the houses of friends of my parents, houses of teachers who taught me: I thought of them all safely asleep security of their hands. Many of them of course I would see later that day – either at father's party or a county fair. As I passed the gas station, old Rick raised his right arm in a kind of informal salute to Zippy and me. The canal was perfect for swimming: deep enough to dive into and with little danger from weeds and watery undergrowth, since it was routinely dredged and kept clean. I’d been fishing and swimming in this canal since I was 8. I guess I looked upon it as my canal – but then may be everyone in town did. Zippy, being Zippy, plunged headlong into the water, raising a stream of splash into the air. I dived in and front crawled to the other side in a burst of energy and joy. The water was cold, of course, but with my head and chest above the water the sun was already warm enough to make the swim invigorating and cleansing. It had the feel of a new baptism to match this perfect day. I splashed water at Zippy who seemed simply happy to be alive. But then I became aware of something strange. At the edge of the canal my feet were half-balanced on the rough concrete blocks that had been sunk into the earth sides of the canal to prevent erosion, but I slowly became aware of something softer, something more malleable beneath my feet. I pushed myself away from the bank to give myself room to dive down and investigate. I dove into the murky water, my hands groping downwards and touched – a human body. Using all my strength I hauled and heaved whoever it was to the surface. And then my perfect day was annihilated as I found myself looking at Tanya’s long red hair, the pale refection of her skin and her lips now tainted by the faint blue of death. I never made it to the county fair.

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Composition: A Day I Will Never Forget

Back to: English Language Primary 6

Welcome to today’s class!!

We are excited to have you join our class!!

In today’s English class, we will learning about Composition: A Day I Will Never Forget

Composition can mean two things. It can mean a piece of writing, or it can mean the art and process of writing. 

Composition is not a specific type of writing like an essay . Instead, it’s a term that can refer to any written work that is true and how a piece is written. 

As a result of this, sometimes you might be asked to write a composition for class. 

In today’s class, we’ll be looking at an interesting topic to write about. 

A Day I Will Never Forget

My name is Sarah Adebajo. A day I will never forget is the day I visited Ibadan With my family. 

It was the first time my father had announced that we will be traveling out of Lagos for the first time. I was 9 years old and in primary 5, and we had just started our summer holidays. 

Everyone in my family was happy. My mother had gone to the popular Lagos Island market in Balogun to buy clothes and the Oyingbo market in Yaba to buy foodstuffs. It was an exciting moment for us all!

My father drove my mother, my older brother and sister and myself to Ibadan two days after we returned from the market. 

We had a wonderful time in Ibadan just as we expected as we visited friends and families who welcomed my family and gave my siblings and I plenty of money. 

The composition tells the story of Sarah Adebajo, who talks about how interesting her trip was with her family and how it became a day she will never forget. 

Explain why an essay is different from a composition.

Reading Assignment

Write a composition about your favorite food. 

Weekend Assignment

• What is an Explanatory Composition?
• List four important details you must include when writing an explanatory composition.
• Write a composition on a trip you will never forget. 

We hope you enjoyed today’s class. In our next class, we will be learning about New Words And Their Meaning

Let us know your thoughts and questions in the comment section, and we will attend to them as fast as we can.

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85 Heartfelt "Thank You" Messages and Words of Appreciation

A handwritten note is so much more meaningful than a generic store-bought card.

Thank you messages for gifts

Thank you messages for wedding presents, birthday thank you messages, graduation thank you messages, thank you messages for help given.

Saying "thank you" in person is a great way to show your appreciation, but taking the time to sit down and write a thoughtful handwritten "thank you" note can express your gratitude in a more meaningful way.

While the etiquette is clear on the necessity of thank you cards, what goes inside can be a bit trickier. Sure, you can always buy a pre-written card at any store, with the sentiment still being very sweet, but a personalized "thank you" message really goes the extra mile to show someone you cherish their effort, time and ultimately, their sweet gesture.

What is the best thank you message?

While the best message to write in any kind of card is always a personalized one, we all need a little inspiration sometimes. Start with some of these sentiments, and then add an element that makes it your own.

Maybe that's a memory you share from the party where you received a gift, an inside joke from a vacation you went on together, or how you plan to use a monetary gift. Whatever it is, don't forget to seal it with love. And while it's best to send thank-you cards as soon as you can after a birthday, wedding, special event or meaningful favor, there's no expiration date on gratitude. Whenever you get to it, they'll appreciate the thought.

• I couldn't have picked out a better gift for myself if I tried.
• I am touched you remembered me.
• Your gift really made me smile.
• I'll think of you every time I use your gift.
• Every time I look at your gift, I'll think of our friendship.
• You didn't have to, but I'm sure glad you did!
• Your presence is my present, but I love this one too. Thank you!
• Thank you for the meaningful present.
• How did you know your gift was just what I needed?
• Receiving your thoughtful present really made my day.
• You know me so well! Thanks for the gift.
• You're the best gift I could ask for, but this one is pretty great too.
• I'll cherish your present always, just like I will our relationship.
• You hit it out of the park again, slugger!
• Finding your present in my mailbox meant so much. Thanks!
• Grateful AF.
• You're so sweet, and so is this gift.

• Thank you for celebrating this milestone with us.
• We're so appreciative to have friends/family like you!
• We can't wait to use [insert gift] in our lives together.
• We appreciate the miles traveled to attend our celebration, and can't thank you enough for being here. It means the world to us.
• We appreciate you coming to celebrate with us.
• Thank you for being a part of our special day.
• Our wedding was so special, and your presence made it even better.
• Thank you for helping us start our life together.
• Your generosity is only outdone by your kindness. Thank you.
• We are so touched by your generous gift.
• We're blessed to have friends like you who are really family.
• We knew you were a great friend, but we didn't realize you were a dancing queen!
• Thank you for making the trip to celebrate our wedding. We appreciate it.
• It means so much that you welcomed me into the family with open arms. Thank you.
• Your marriage is truly #goals for us! Thanks for being such a great example.
• We appreciate all of the time and effort you put in to make our wedding such a success.
• Thank you for being a bridesmaid — hope I wasn't too much of a bridezilla!
• I'd have been lost up there without you. Thanks for being my groomsman.
• Thanks for being you so we could be us.

• Thank you for thinking of me on my special day.
• Another year older, another year wiser, another year I'm so grateful for you.
• Thank you for making my birthday so special!
• Thank you for making me feel so loved on my birthday!
• Getting older is a pleasure with you by my side.
• I'm overwhelmed with love and gratitude for all the birthday wishes. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
• You really bring the party! Thanks for dancing the night away.
• Thanks for the best birthday gift ever — of always being older than me.
• Waking up to your birthday text made my whole day.
• Your birthday messages made me feel like royalty. Thanks!
• People like you make every year special.
• I'm so blessed we could spend my special day together. Thanks for being there.
• It means the world that you took the time out of your busy schedule to spend some time with me. Thank you!
• Thanks for being one of the people who knew me when (and for sticking around all these years!)
• You made what can be a tough day so much lighter. Thank you.
• If I have to get older, at least I can spend more time with people like you.

• I'm thankful to have you in my corner as I take this next step.
• I wouldn't be where I am without your help along the way.
• Thank you for being such a great friend and mentor to me. It means a lot.
• Thanks for the thoughtful gift to help start me on my next phase of life.
• I wouldn't have made it this far without you. Thank you for your support.
• It means so much that you were there to celebrate my graduation.
• Seeing you in the crowd made graduating that much sweeter. Thanks for being there!
• You've always been one of my biggest cheerleaders. Thank you for your support.
• I believe in myself because you believed in me first. Thank you.
• Thanks for celebrating this achievement with me.
• Thank you for being the teacher who made me want to come to class.
• I never thought I'd like math/science/English/gym, but you made it fun. Thanks for all you do!
• It's teachers like you who make school a blast. Thanks for all of your hard work for students like me!
• Thank you for being there as I start my next chapter.
• Going off to college is a big step, but you helped me feel ready.
• Thanks for always believing in me.
• It's such a gift that you've always been there for my milestones, and especially this one.

• I am so grateful for your generosity and willingness to lend a hand. You've made a positive impact on my life.
• I don't know where we'd be without you. Thank you for your help.
• Thank you for being my rock.
• You're my port in a storm. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
• Thanks for always putting up with me. It means more than you know.
• You showed up just when I needed a shoulder to lean on, and it means so much to me.
• There aren't enough words to express what your support means.
• Thank you for always being the person I can count on.
• I am so blessed to have you in my life!
• Thank you for always being the first to show up and the last to leave.
• You're the peanut butter to my jelly.
• You always lift me up when I'm down.
• Thank you for coming through on such short notice. You're a lifesaver.
• I love you and am so thankful for you.
• How can I ever thank you enough? This is a start.
• Everything turned out perfectly, thanks to your help.

Lizz (she/her) is a senior editor at Good Housekeeping , where she runs the GH Book Club, edits essays and long-form features and writes about pets, books and lifestyle topics. A journalist for almost two decades, she is the author of Biography of a Body and Buffalo Steel. She also teaches journalism as an adjunct professor at New York University's School of Professional Studies and creative nonfiction at the Muse Writing Center, and coaches with the New York Writing Room. 

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Friday essay: girls have long been woefully underestimated – but now they’re roaring back

Associate Professor in Literary Studies, Monash University

Disclosure statement

Michelle Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Monash University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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Teenage girls are typically the least powerful and most underestimated group within Western cultures – where adults are seen as superior to children, and men are privileged above women. Girls can also provoke cultural fears and anxieties because they occupy a transitional space between childhood and adulthood.

How old is a “girl”? The definition has shifted, along with things like the age of consent and marriage. The significance of marriage has tended to mean young women are called “girls” even into their early twenties. While female children are also understood as girls, a distinct girls’ culture begins, it’s generally thought, around the pre-teen years.

The separate stage of life we know as girlhood originated in the second half of the 19th century. It was brought into being by two major transformations: the raise of the age of marriage to the early twenties and girls working outside the home. In Britain and the United States, these changes created a time of independence for young women, between being under the control of parents and the confines of marriage, as literary historian Sally Mitchell has written .

The reality of girls having financial and personal freedom was a worrying prospect. As Mitchell writes , the way a girl is seen as both immature and occupying a liminal stage “gives her permission to behave in ways that might not be appropriate for a woman”.

Yet a separately designated period of girlhood also gave rise to a girls’ culture designed to cater to their unique interests, such as books, magazines and organisations. This “girl culture” would expand and become more visible in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Today’s girls enjoy a wide range of interests and pursuits, from Taylor Swift fandom to political action and elite sport. Yet their interests are often trivialised or dismissed.

Girls of substance

Girls are often framed as “ at risk ”, or as potential dangers to themselves via sex and drugs. At the same time, they are typically dismissed in terms of their political or cultural influence. A popular nursery rhyme suggests girls are made of “sugar and spice and all things nice”. This implies a pleasant, compliant nature, rather than challenging the status quo.

When girls have made a political impact and risen to international prominence, they have often been the target of significant hatred. For example, activist Greta Thunberg gained global notoriety as a 15-year-old when she began the School Strike for Climate movement in 2018.

She became a figure of online hate, especially after sailing to the US in 2019 to participate in climate talks. Thunberg was criticised for having political passion (“whining” and exhibiting “anger”), and for daring to speak up when she was only a “child”.

Even Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who survived being shot by a Taliban gunman in Pakistan in 2012 and subsequently became an activist for girls’ education, has been the subject of waves of “ Malala hate ”. Her acceptance into Oxford University, her Nobel Peace Prize and high-profile interviews in magazines such as Vogue have only heightened the volume and vitriol of the disapproval.

Girls of substance, such as Thunberg and Yousafzai, defy feminine expectations by being assertive and refusing to accept social and political norms largely established by male leaders. The degree of irritation these outspoken girls have provoked illustrates how they disrupt the cultural expectations of girls as compliant and unimportant.

Boys vs girls in popular culture

Just as girls themselves have been dismissed when they have attempted to influence politics or culture, the interests and passions of girls have typically been derided as trivial in comparison with those of boys and men.

One of the first visible manifestations of female fandom was teenage girls’ early enthusiasm for The Beatles in the 1960s. As expert on media fandom Mark Duffett explains , the enthusiasm of girls and women for the band was distinguished as “feminized ‘hysterical’ affect” in contrast with “intellectually mature, artistic appreciation”.

The idea that the aspects of culture girls are attracted to are inferior or disposable is another way their interests have been belittled.

Words associated with the music girls primarily consume, such as “bubblegum” pop, signal its “sweetness” and lack of substance. In the 1980s and 1990s, girls’ fandom of “boy bands” such as New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys was disparaged.

More recently, there is some animosity towards “Swifties” and dismissal of the musical quality and likely longevity of Taylor Swift’s music. However, her undeniably successful recent tour to Australia attracted reams of positive media coverage. Articles celebrated girls and their mothers wearing glitter and sequins and attending concerts together.

In the realm of cinema, superhero and comic films are big business today: the Marvel cinematic universe is the highest-grossing franchise in history. These films, with huge production and marketing budgets, are derived from publications and toys typically associated with boys. Though some of these fictional universes include female characters, they are less commonly at the forefront.

In contrast, girls’ interests and hobbies have been so derided and marginalised that Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023) was one of the first films to elevate a girls’ toy to major cinema prominence.

Unlike the seven-film Transformers franchise , which has grossed over $5 billion , Barbie exhibits a high-degree of self-awareness and irony about the toy and how girls play with it. Barbie, which has grossed 1.45 billion US dollars at the box office, was widely dissected as a measure of contemporary feminism.

While a predominantly male viewership can uncritically watch action films about robots that change form for entertainment, a story about an iconic fashion doll for girls carried many other expectations – because of its rarity and the sense that girls’ toys and interests are frivolous.

From dismissal to lucrative market share

In the 1870s, in both Britain and the United States, doctors argued against the value of girls’ education by suggesting girls entering puberty required the limited supply of energy available within their bodies to prepare their reproductive systems for womanhood. If girls undertook rigorous academic study, their ability to have healthy children and to retain “their natural grace and gentility” might have been compromised, writes historian Kathleen E. McCrone.

These historical opinions highlight two perceptions of girls: first, that they were physically “weaker” beings who were not capable of the same physical and intellectual activities as boys; and second, that their primary purpose was to bear children.

Things have changed a great deal since. Teenage girls, for instance, are participating in the Olympics in notable numbers as peak athletes. Skateboarding in particular features girls such as 14-year-old Australian skateboarder Arisa Trew , who became the youngest ever Australian Olympic gold medallist this week. (She also became the first woman to land a 720 – two full rotations while mid-air – in competition.)

Girls now have a different kind of cachet: market power in a capitalist economy. In 2000, a Disney executive observed the number of girls dressed in generic princess costumes for live Disney on Ice performances. In response, he initiated the Disney Princess line of merchandise. These toys, costumes, books and accessories reached annual sales in the billions in the early 2000s .

In 2023, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which appealed largely to girls and young women, became the highest-grossing tour of all time .

Nevertheless, Swift attracts criticism that her performances are as not as legitimate as those of male bands who cater to an older fanbase (which includes more men). In a direct reference to the Eras Tour, the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, for example, joked with a live audience that his band was undertaking the “Errors Tour”, “because we actually play live”.

One cultural arena where girls dominate is reading. The 2024 Report of the Australian Teen Reading in the Digital Era project shows twice as many girls are “fiction fanatics” (avid readers) as boys. And boys are far more likely than girls to abstain from reading altogether.

Most young adult fiction is written by women , for an audience of primarily girls and young women. Girls are highly influential on the book industry, by sharing their opinions about books on BookTok and exerting pressure on publishers through social media to increase the diversity of published authors .

The gendered nature of teen reading is commonly framed as a “problem”, with campaigns for more fiction to be published that will directly appeal to boys , to improve their rates of literacy. However, research has repeatedly found male characters have been historically overrepresented in children’s literature. This continues to be the case, despite modest improvements in recent years.

Until comparatively recently, girls have been expected to identify vicariously with male protagonists in fiction and film. Yet it is typically presumed that boys are not willing to read or view stories about girls or written by women, just as men largely refuse to read books written by women . Author of the Harry Potter series, Joanne Rowling, famously adopted the pen-name “J.K” because of her publisher’s assumption that boys would not read a book written by a woman .

The women of tomorrow

In 2024, young women comprise around 60 per cent of Australian university students , reflecting women’s entry into numerous professions. Meanwhile Kamala Harris is a serious contender to become the first female US president, showing girls they can aspire to almost any role in life.

Yet despite movements towards equality for girls and women, sexism continues to permeate many institutions and girls continue to experience sexual assault at double the rate of boys .

Girls are the women of tomorrow. To improve the future for women, it is important to reevaluate attitudes towards girls’ culture and interests. We need to consider why they are often dismissed, compared to the hobbies and passions of boys.

For parents, there is a vital role to play in counteracting stereotypes about girls. Adults can also improve their engagement with girls to prepare them to face a sometimes hostile world.

Chelsey Goodan’s Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls , for instance, talks about the need to trust girls to make their own choices, the importance of discussing complex issues, such as sexuality, with them honestly, and why we need to listen to them in ways that allow them to reveal difficult emotions, such as shame and fear.

As Goodan suggests, by dismissing girls with labels like “hormonal”, “crazy” and “dramatic”, our culture “minimizes their voice until it’s silent”.

Most importantly, we can empower girls to speak up. We can also improve our level of respect for them and what they have to say. Devaluing the period of youth for half of the population contributes to attitudes that diminish the contributions, achievements and interests of women, too.

• Olympic games
• Taylor Swift
• Malala Yousafzai
• Skateboarding
• Teen reading
• Friday essay
• Teenage girls
• J.K. Rowling
• Greta Thunberg

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In the Age of A.I., What Makes People Unique?

Recently, I got a haircut, and my barber and I started talking about A.I. “It’s incredible,” he told me. “I just used it to write a poem for my girl’s birthday. I told it what to say, but I can’t rhyme that well, so it did all the writing. When she read the poem, she actually cried! Then she showed it to her friend, who’s really smart, and I thought, Uh-oh, she’ll figure it out for sure.” Snip, snip, snip, snip. “She didn’t.”

Everyone in the barbershop laughed, a little darkly. Writing poems that make your girl cry—add that to the list of abilities that used to make (some) humans unique but no longer do. Today’s A.I. systems can generate acceptable poetry, code , essays, and jokes; carry on useful conversations about economics, existentialism, and the Middle East; and even perform some aspects of scientific work, such as planning experiments, predicting outcomes, and interpreting results. They can make judgments about complex situations—traffic patterns, investments—at superhuman speed. In truth, we don’t yet know all they can do. The biggest tech companies are racing to deploy the technology partly so that we can find out.

It seems entirely likely that the list of A.I.’s capabilities will only grow—and so it’s tempting to wonder what, exactly, people are good for. In the past, theologians and philosophers compared us with animals and identified the ways in which we surpassed them. Now the tables aren’t so much turned as upended. In some cases, we seem to be looking upward at the machines (no human being can write with an A.I.’s fluidity and speed, for example). In others, we scratch our heads at their stupidity (no person would advise you to make a daily habit of eating “at least one small rock,” as Google’s A.I. did not long ago, when asked “How many rocks should I eat each day?”). In still other cases, we’re simply confused by the divergences between artificial and organic reasoning. An A.I. can’t fall in love, but it can express the idea of love; it can’t be an artist, but it can (maybe) create a kind of art ; it can’t agonize over a consequential decision, but it can still decide. We know that there are crucial differences between a thinking computer and a person, but defining those distinctions isn’t easy.

And yet this abstract conundrum has practical implications. As artificial intelligence proliferates, more and more hinges on our ability to articulate our own value. We seem to be on the cusp of a world in which workers of all kinds—teachers, doctors, writers, photographers, lawyers, coders, clerks, and more—will be replaced with, or to some degree sidelined by, their A.I. equivalents . What will get left out when A.I. steps in?

In “ A.I. Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference ,” two computer scientists, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, approach the question on a practical level. They urge skepticism, and argue that the blanket term “A.I.” can serve as a kind of smoke screen for underperforming technologies. “Imagine an alternate universe in which people don’t have words for different forms of transportation—only the collective noun ‘vehicle,’ ” they write. Such a world sees “furious debates about whether or not vehicles are environmentally friendly, even though no one realizes that one side of the debate is talking about bikes and the other side is talking about trucks.” Similarly, they write, the term “A.I.” encompasses a variety of technologies with wildly different levels of competence.

Narayanan and Kapoor are particularly wary of predictive artificial intelligence, which is designed to make guesses about the future. Unlike generative A.I. —the relatively new technology used in ChatGPT and the like—predictive A.I. is already integrated into our lives to a surprising extent. Human-resources departments use it to suggest which candidates will succeed on the job; hospitals employ it to help decide who should be sent home or admitted for a stay. And yet predictive A.I. systems are almost never rigorously and independently tested; when they are, they often fail. Narayanan and Kapoor recount the findings of researchers investigating an A.I. system called Retorio, which claims to predict future on-the-job behavior, and thus performance, by analyzing video interviews with job candidates. It turned out that wearing glasses or a scarf, sitting in front of some bookshelves, or sending a résumé in the form of a PDF could drastically change a candidate’s score. Wearing glasses “obviously does not change someone’s capability to perform well at a job,” the authors write. In their view, the system is A.I. snake oil.

The problems with predictive A.I. can run deeper than mere inaccuracy. In an early experiment, researchers built a system for guessing whether pneumonia patients arriving at a hospital would need overnight care. The system examined the data and discovered that patients with asthma tended to recover from pneumonia faster; this made it more likely to recommend that asthmatic patients be sent home. That’s a crazy recommendation, of course; the correlation on which it’s based reflects the fact that asthmatic people with pneumonia are often admitted directly to the I.C.U., where they receive high levels of care. (The system was never used.) “A good prediction is not a good decision,” Narayanan and Kapoor write. Among other things, being a capable decision-maker means not just interrogating the origins of your intuitions, but also imagining how your upcoming decisions might render those intuitions invalid. It’s highly unlikely that candidates who Zoom while sitting in front of bookshelves will be better employees—but, even if that prediction were true, acting on it repeatedly would simply teach interviewees to sit in front of bookshelves. As human beings, we have a sense of the fallibility of our thinking; it’s one of our strengths.

Shannon Vallor, a philosopher at the University of Edinburgh who has worked as an A.I. ethicist at Google, doesn’t enumerate the failures of A.I. so much as explore the range and potency of human virtues. In “ The A.I. Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking ,” she argues that we vastly underestimate our own richness compared with that of A.I. “Consider the image that appears in your bathroom mirror every morning,” she writes. It isn’t a copy of your body, or an imitation of it; it’s just a reflection. Similarly, today’s A.I. systems “don’t produce thoughts or feelings any more than mirrors produce bodies. What they produce is a new kind of reflection.”

Vallor specializes not just in the philosophy of technology but also in virtue ethics—the study of what it means for a person to have excellent qualities. She notes that cultivating virtues—courage, honesty, integrity, imagination, empathy, curiosity, and so on—takes time. Being virtuous isn’t something you achieve once; it’s not like passing a test. It involves navigating the world in a certain way with particular priorities in mind, while asking endless questions about what you should do, how you should do it, who you should do it with, and why you’re doing it. “This struggle is the root of existentialist philosophy,” Vallor writes. “At each moment we must choose to exist in a particular way. Then, even as we make the choice—to love another, to shoulder a duty, to take up a cause, to rebuke a faith or throw ourselves into it—the choice opens up again. It will not hold itself there without our commitment to choose it again, and again.”

In Vallor’s view, though A.I. systems have many striking capabilities, they don’t have the ability to be virtuous. This may not sound like a big deal, but in fact it’s profound. Being loving is a virtue, and people can spend their whole lives trying to love one another better. But, when a chatbot says, “I’ve been missing you all day,” Vallor writes, “it’s bullshit since the chatbot doesn’t have a concept of emotional truth to betray.” The bot is putting itself across as a being capable of love, but the words are unearned. “A flat digital mirror has no bodily depth that can ache,” she argues. “It knows no passage of time that can drag.” In short, it isn’t alive—and without having a life, it can’t be any way in particular.

Vallor’s worry isn’t that artificially intelligent computers will rise up and dominate humanity, but that, faced with computers that can pretend to have human virtues, we’ll lose track of what those virtues really are. Comforted by computers that tell us that they love us, we’ll forget what love is. Wowed by systems that seem to be creative, we’ll lose respect for actual human creativity—a struggle for self-expression that can involve a “painful” reimagining of the self. This forgetting process, she warns, has already begun: besotted with our technology, we seem almost eager to narrow our conception of what it means to be human. “The call is coming from inside the house,” Vallor writes. “AI can devalue our humanity only because we already devalued it ourselves.” We need to reinvest in the vocabulary of human value before our machines rob it of its meaning.

Compared with many technologists, Narayanan, Kapoor, and Vallor are deeply skeptical about today’s A.I. technology and what it can achieve. Perhaps they shouldn’t be. Some experts—including Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather of A.I.,” whom I profiled recently —believe that it might already make sense to talk about A.I.s that have emotions or subjective points of view. Around the world, billions of dollars are being spent to make A.I. more powerful. Perhaps systems with more complex minds—with memories, goals, moral commitments, higher purposes, and so on—can be built.

And yet these books aren’t just describing A.I., which continues to evolve, but characterizing the human condition. That’s work that can’t be easily completed, although the history of thought overflows with attempts. It’s hard because human life is elusive, variable, and individual, and also because characterizing human experience pushes us to the edges of our own expressive abilities. And so, probably, the polarity of our conversations about A.I. should be reversed. Instead of assuming that we know what human beings do, we should presume that, whenever an A.I. replaces a person in some role or other, something—perhaps a great deal—is lost. We should see the abilities of an A.I. as powerful, but never really humanlike. We should grow newly comfortable with asserting that human nature is indispensable, and take pride in the fact that we must struggle to define it. ♦

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Book excerpt: "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin

Updated on: August 10, 2024 / 9:38 AM EDT / CBS News

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Writer, poet and activist James Baldwin (1924-1987) was one of the leading literary voices of the civil rights movement. Through a powerful oeuvre of novels, plays and essays, he explored issues of race, class, politics and sexual identity during one of America's most turbulent periods.

Baldwin's essay "My Dungeon Shook," written in the form of a letter to his young nephew, was first published in The Progressive in 1962; the following year a revised version was included in "The Fire Next Time"  (now included in a new collection from Everyman's Library). The letter is a powerful treatise on the state of racism in America - how it affects Black people whose very dignity is circumscribed by social constructs, as well as whites undermined by their lack of understanding and their feelings of fear. It richly illustrates the ironies of how race relations can dampen the humanity of all involved.

Read the essay below, and don't miss Kelefa Sanneh's report on the centenary of James Baldwin on "CBS Sunday Morning" August 11!

"The Fire Next Time; Nobody Knows My Name; No Name in the Street; The Devil Finds Work" by James Baldwin

"My Dungeon Shook"

Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation

Dear James:

I have begun this letter five times and torn it up five times. I keep seeing your face, which is also the face of your father and my brother. Like him, you are tough, dark, vulnerable, moody—with a very definite tendency to sound truculent because you want no one to think you are soft. You may be like your grandfather in this, I don't know, but certainly both you and your father resemble him very much physically. Well, he is dead, he never saw you, and he had a terrible life; he was defeated long before he died because, at the bottom of his heart, he really believed what white people said about him. This is one of the reasons that he became so holy. I am sure that your father has told you something about all that. Neither you nor your father exhibit any tendency towards holiness: you really are of another era, part of what happened when the Negro left the land and came into what the late E. Franklin Frazier called "the cities of destruction." You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a n----- . I tell you this because I love you, and please don't you ever forget it.

I have known both of you all your lives, have carried your Daddy in my arms and on my shoulders, kissed and spanked him and watched him learn to walk. I don't know if you've known anybody from that far back; if you've loved anybody that long, first as an infant, then as a child, then as a man, you gain a strange perspective on time and human pain and effort. Other people cannot see what I see whenever I look into your father's face, for behind your father's face as it is today are all those other faces which were his. Let him laugh and I see a cellar your father does not remember and a house he does not remember and I hear in his present laughter his laughter as a child. Let him curse and I remember him falling down the cellar steps, and howling, and I remember, with pain, his tears, which my hand or your grandmother's so easily wiped away. But no one's hand can wipe away those tears he sheds invisibly today, which one hears in his laughter and in his speech and in his songs. I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be, indeed one must strive to become, tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of man. (But remember: most of mankind is not all of mankind.) But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.

Now, my dear namesake, these innocent and well-meaning people, your countrymen, have caused you to be born under conditions not very far removed from those described for us by Charles Dickens in the London of more than a hundred years ago. (I hear the chorus of the innocents screaming, "No! This is not true! How bitter you are!"—but I am writing this letter to you, to try to tell you something about how to handle them , for most of them do not yet really know that you exist. I know the conditions under which you were born, for I was there. Your countrymen were not there, and haven't made it yet. Your grandmother was also there, and no one has ever accused her of being bitter. I suggest that the innocents check with her. She isn't hard to find. Your countrymen don't know that she exists, either, though she has been working for them all their lives.)

Well, you were born, here you came, something like fifteen years ago; and though your father and mother and grandmother, looking about the streets through which they were carrying you, staring at the walls into which they brought you, had every reason to be heavyhearted, yet they were not. For here you were, Big James, named for me—you were a big baby, I was not—here you were: to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world. Remember that: I know how black it looks today, for you. It looked bad that day, too, yes, we were trembling. We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived. And now you must survive because we love you, and for the sake of your children and your children's children.

This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason . The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could live and whom you could marry. I know your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying, "You exaggerate." They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you. Take no one's word for anything, including mine—but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear. Please try to be clear, dear James, through the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them . And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of their identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don't be afraid. I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man's definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality. But these men are your brothers—your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off.

You know, and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you, James, and Godspeed.

Your uncle, James

       From "The First Next Time" by James Baldwin. Reprinted by arrangement with Modern Library, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 1962, 1963 by James Baldwin. Copyright renewed 1990, 1991 by Gloria Baldwin Karefa-Smart. 

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• "The Fire Next Time; Nobody Knows My Name; No Name in the Street; The Devil Finds Work" by James Baldwin (Everyman's Library), in Hardcover, available via Amazon , Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
• JamesBaldwinBooks.com (Penguin Random House)

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In the United States the atomic bombs signaled military victory. In Japan the remaining survivors have been left to contemplate whether the world has learned anything from their trauma — or whether the world powers are on a collision course to repeat it.

The Last Survivors Speak. It’s Time to Listen.

By Kathleen Kingsbury, W.J. Hennigan and Spencer Cohen Photographs by Kentaro Takahashi

• Share full article

T he waiting room of the Red Cross hospital in downtown Hiroshima is always crowded. Nearly every available seat is occupied, often by elderly people waiting for their names to be called. Many of these men and women don’t have typical medical histories, however. They are the surviving victims of the American atomic bomb attack 79 years ago.

Not many Americans have Aug. 6 circled on their calendars, but it’s a day that the Japanese can’t forget. Even now, the hospital continues to treat, on average, 180 survivors — known as hibakusha — of the blasts each day.

When the United States dropped an atomic weapon on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, the entire citizenries of both countries were working feverishly to win World War II. For most Americans, the bomb represented a path to victory after nearly four relentless years of battle and a technological advance that would cement the nation as a geopolitical superpower for generations. Our textbooks talk about the world’s first use of a nuclear weapon.

Many today in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the United States detonated a bomb just three days later, talk about how those horrible events must be the last uses of nuclear weapons.

A view across the Motoyasu River of the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima.

The bombs killed an estimated 200,000 men, women and children and maimed countless more. In Hiroshima 50,000 of the city’s 76,000 buildings were completely destroyed. In Nagasaki nearly all homes within a mile and a half of the blast were wiped out. In both cities the bombs wrecked hospitals and schools. Urban infrastructure collapsed.

Americans didn’t dwell on the devastation. Here the bombings were hailed as necessary and heroic acts that brought the war to an end. In the days immediately after the nuclear blasts, the polling firm Gallup found that 85 percent of Americans approved of the decision to drop atomic bombs over Japan. Even decades later the narrative of military might — and American sacrifice — continued to reign.

This article is part of the Opinion series At the Brink , about the threat of nuclear weapons in an unstable world. Read the opening piece here .

For the 50th anniversary of the war’s end, the Smithsonian buckled to pressure from veterans and their families and scaled back a planned exhibition that would have offered a more nuanced portrait of the conflict, including questioning the morality of the bomb. The Senate even passed a resolution calling the Smithsonian exhibition “revisionist and offensive” and declared it must “avoid impugning the memory of those who gave their lives for freedom.”

In Japan, however, the hibakusha and their offspring have formed the backbone of atomic memory. Many see their life’s work as informing the wider world about what it’s like to carry the trauma, stigma and survivor’s guilt caused by the bombs, so that nuclear weapons may never be used again. Their urgency to do so has only increased in recent years. With an average age of 85, the hibakusha are dying by the hundreds each month — just as the world is entering a new nuclear age .

Countries like the United States, China and Russia are spending trillions of dollars to modernize their stockpiles. Many of the safeguards that once lowered nuclear risk are unraveling, and the diplomacy needed to restore them is not happening . The threat of another blast can’t be relegated to history.

And so, as another anniversary of Aug. 6 passes, it is necessary for Americans — and the globe, really — to listen to the stories of the few human beings who can still speak to the horror nuclear weapons can inflict before this approach is taken again.

Chieko Kiriake was on a break from her job at a tobacco factory in Hiroshima. Chieko Kiriake was on a break from her job at a tobacco factory in Hiroshima.

She was 15 years old. She was 15 years old.

Everything was burned. People were walking around with their clothes burned off, their hair singed and standing on end. Their faces were swollen, so much so that you couldn’t tell who was who. Their lips were swollen too, too swollen to speak. Their skin would fall right off and hang off their hands at the fingernails, like an inside-out glove, all black from the mud and ash. It was almost like they had black seaweed hanging from their hands.

But I was thankful that some of my classmates were alive, that they were able to make their way back.

Swarms of flies came and laid eggs in the burns, which would hatch, and the larvae would start squirming inside the skin. They couldn’t stand the pain. They’d cry and plead, ‘Get these maggots out of my skin.’

The maggots would feast on the blood and pus and get so plump and squirm. I didn’t dare use my bare hands, so I brought my chopsticks and picked them out one by one. But they kept hatching inside the skin. I spent hours picking those maggots out of my classmates.”

Hiroe Kawashimo’s mother was at home in Hiroshima. Hiroe Kawashimo’s mother was at home in Hiroshima.

She was born eight months later. She was born eight months later.

On Aug. 6, 1945, Hiroe Kawashimo wasn’t yet born. She was in utero; her mother was around 1 kilometer from ground zero when she was exposed to the bomb’s radiation in Hiroshima. Ms. Kawashimo was born several months later, weighing 500 grams, according to her mother — apparently so small, she could fit in a rice bowl. She was one of numerous children exposed to the bomb while in utero and diagnosed with microcephaly, a smaller head.

Seiji Takato was at home with his mother in Hiroshima. Seiji Takato was at home with his mother in Hiroshima.

He was 4 years old. He was 4 years old.

I remember the burnt smell. I was 4 years old. And I don’t really remember the immediate symptoms. But some years later, I had boils on my legs, and they didn’t heal for a long time. That made me really hate going to school. Later the lymph nodes in my armpits and legs swelled up, and I had to have them cut open three times.”

Seiichiro Mise was at home in Nagasaki playing the organ, mimicking the sounds of B-29 bombers. Seiichiro Mise was at home in Nagasaki playing the organ, mimicking the sounds of B-29 bombers.

He was 10 years old. He was 10 years old.

I got married in 1964. At the time, people would say that if you married an atomic bomb survivor, any kids you had would be deformed.

Two years later, I got a call from the hospital saying my baby had been born. But on my way, my heart was troubled. I’m an atomic bomb victim. I experienced that black rain. So I felt anguished. Usually new parents simply ask the doctor, ‘Is it a boy or girl?’ I didn’t even ask that. Instead, I asked, ‘Does my baby have 10 fingers and 10 toes?’

The doctor looked unsettled. But then he smiled and said it was a healthy boy. I was relieved.”

Kunihiko Sakuma was at home with his mother in Hiroshima. Kunihiko Sakuma was at home with his mother in Hiroshima.

He was 9 months old. He was 9 months old.

There are people today who still find it difficult to talk about what they experienced. It could be their advanced age, or they don’t feel up to it physically. Often they just don’t feel well, even though they don’t know why.

So I’d ask them, ‘By the way, where were you during the bombing?’ People died or got sick not just right after the bombing. The reality is, their symptoms are emerging even today, 79 years later.

I thought all this was in the past. But as I started talking to survivors, I realized their suffering was still ongoing.

The atomic bomb is such an inhumane weapon, and the effects of radiation stay with survivors for a very long time. That’s why they need our continued support.”

Minoru Hataguchi’s mother was at home. His father was at work next to Hiroshima Station and never came home. Minoru Hataguchi’s mother was at home. His father was at work next to Hiroshima Station and never came home.

He was born seven months later. He was born seven months later.

For the first time, at 21, I was officially recognized as an atomic bomb survivor.

But I hated that. Why should I be labeled a survivor, when I was born the year after the bomb, 20 kilometers away from the epicenter?

I hated even looking at the Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Health Handbook, and I quickly put it away in my desk drawer. I didn’t want the discrimination, and I didn’t want the pity. Until I was in my 50s, I didn’t tell anyone that I was a survivor.”

Now a doctor, Masao Tomonaga was asleep on the second floor of his home in Nagasaki at the time of the bombing. Now a doctor, Masao Tomonaga was asleep on the second floor of his home in Nagasaki at the time of the bombing.

He was 2 years old. He was 2 years old.

At the time of bombing, a woman was 17, and she suffered a severe thigh bone fracture. So she was unable to walk. She spent her whole life in a wheelchair, and when she turned 76, she quickly developed severe anemia, and she became very weak.

We examined her blood and found that acute leukemia was quickly growing inside her body. Then she said to me, ‘I have long believed the atomic bomb was living, surviving inside.’ Maybe she had a feeling that the atomic bomb had entered her body. She didn’t use ‘radiation’ — a special term, ‘radiation.’ But she said, ‘The atomic bomb entered me and survived until now.’”

Shigeaki Mori was crossing a bridge on his way to school in Hiroshima. His wife, Kayoko, is also a survivor. Shigeaki Mori was crossing a bridge on his way to school in Hiroshima. His wife, Kayoko, is also a survivor.

He was 8 years old; she was 3 years old. He was 8 years old; she was 3 years old.

People still don’t get it. The atomic bomb isn’t a simple weapon. I speak as someone who suffers until this day: The world needs to stop nuclear war from ever happening again. But when I turn on the news, I see politicians talk about deploying more weapons, more tanks. How could they? I wish for the day they stop that.”

Keiko Ogura was standing on a road near her home in Hiroshima. Keiko Ogura was standing on a road near her home in Hiroshima.

She was 8 years old. She was 8 years old.

As survivors, we cannot do anything but tell our story. ‘For we shall not repeat the evil’ — this is the pledge of survivors. Until we die, we want to tell our story, because it’s difficult to imagine.

Now what survivors worry about is to die and meet our family in heaven. I heard many survivors say, ‘What shall I do? On this planet there are still many many nuclear weapons, and then I’ll meet my daughter I couldn’t save. I’ll be asked: Mom, what did you do to abolish nuclear weapons?’

There is no answer I can tell them.”

A small pink booklet fits squarely in Shigeaki Mori’s breast pocket — a cherished possession that over the years has become more closely tied to his self-identity. The Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Health Handbook grants him access to free medical checkups and treatment, which at age 87 is critical. Flip open the first page to see his distance from the bomb when it detonated that bright August morning and flip another page to begin tracing years of his health history, written in neat rows of Japanese script.

Barack Obama was the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, in 2016 — in sharp contrast to the regular visits of American leaders to Europe to commemorate major battles there. Mr. Mori was one of two survivors who spoke briefly with Mr. Obama after his remarks, leading to an emotional embrace between the two men.

On his living room wall, Mr. Mori proudly displays a photograph of that moment, alongside dozens of other mementos — including a photo with the pope — from his work over decades to remind the world of what happened in Hiroshima. Many Japanese hoped Mr. Obama’s visit would bring an official apology for the bombings; it did not. The president, however, did not shy away from recognizing the destruction of that day.

The camphor trees at Sanno Shrine in Nagasaki survived the bombing and continue to grow.

“We stand here, in the middle of this city, and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell. We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry,” Mr. Obama said . “Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering, but we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.”

He recognized that voices like Mr. Mori’s are fleeting. “Someday the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness,” Mr. Obama said. “But the memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, must never fade. That memory allows us to fight complacency. It fuels our moral imagination. It allows us to change.”

The Smithsonian is in the midst of planning an exhibition on World War II, with a spotlight on the two bombed cities. It’s time for the next generation to bear witness and demand change.

Listen to Chieko Kiriake and Keiko Ogura tell their stories in an audio essay from Times Opinion.

Kathleen Kingsbury is the Opinion editor of The New York Times, overseeing the editorial board and the Opinion section. W.J. Hennigan writes about national security issues for Opinion from Washington, D.C. Spencer Cohen is an editorial assistant in Opinion. Ms. Kingsbury, Mr. Hennigan and Mr. Cohen spent a week in Japan reporting for Opinion’s series At the Brink, where they interviewed survivors, academics and other nuclear experts.

Kentaro Takahashi is a photographer based in Kyoto. Video by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times.

Interviews have been edited and condensed.

Source footage by Science Photo Library and Forrest Brown, via Getty Images.

This Times Opinion series is funded through philanthropic grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York , Outrider Foundation and the Prospect Hill Foundation . Funders have no control over the selection or focus of articles or the editing process and do not review articles before publication. The Times retains full editorial control.

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