Finish this story: Alice tried to remember who had given her the key...

Alice tried to remember who had given her the key, but the faint figure was fleeting from her memory rapidly. How long ago was it that she had acquired the key, and where had it taken place? The only piece of the story that still held on inside her mind was that it was a man with a very tall hat. She knew that this man was a friend of hers, but she did not know anything else about him.

As she contemplated all of this, a cat ran across her path in the street, and under a door with an old fashioned padlock keeping it from blowing open in the slight breeze. It clattered in the wind, and looked as though one big gust would rip it from the hinges. She followed the cat, and went up to the door. She grabbed the padlock and shook it to see if it was loose in any way but it would not budge.

“Curious.” She said to herself. “I wonder if this is what that key is for.”

She pulled the key from her pants pocket, slid the teeth into the lock and turned the handle counter clockwise. It made a distinct clicking noise as the pins inside lined up, and the shaft came free, opening the lock. She removed it from the door and gently set it on the ground beside her with the key inside.

She opened the door slowly, and crept inside the damp, dingy building. There was no electric lighting system inside, and the only source of light that she could see were 4 faint candles running along what seemed to be a table set with teapots and coffee cups…

Describe what heaven might look like and whom you might or might not find there.

I have no idea what heaven might look like, but from what I have read in Revelation, the streets are made of gold, and lined with precious gems but of course, this is only figurative to try and convey how glorious it actually looks. John took things of earthly beauty and tried to make sense of heaven by comparing the two, but I am quite positive that heaven is gloriously more splendid than just golden streets and jewel encrusted building. I do not think that we could begin to comprehend the majesty and holiness of heaven, so that might in itself give you an abstract idea of it's appearance to our eyes.

As far as who might be there, and who might be missing, I would not have the slightest clue. I could make a few inferences of who would or would not be there; judging solely on character and actions, but only God knows where a person's heart is in their lives. I would be chauvinistic to assume myself better than someone else and say that I am going to heaven because I am a "good person" and that this person is in hell because of their "evil deeds." I bet that ever last one of us would be surprised to see who is in heaven and who is not. Though you might not know who is not there because there is no sorrow in heaven and if you knew who was not, the first human reaction is to be sorrowful over loved ones who wasted their lives and ended up in hell. Maybe we will know who is not with us in heaven, and will understand why they are not, and can look at everything with clear, open thoughts. It is difficult to try and think about things that are outside of human nature.

Write about 3 lessons that you have learned from your parents, both good and bad.

Parents, though almost always under appreciated, have taught all of us important lessons in our lives, whether it was through their actions, both good and bad, or their words, also both the good and the bad. If you look hard enough, you can always put a positive spin on anything in life. My parents have taught me many lessons by being a good example, and by being a poor example, showing me situations that I would not want to subject myself to. There are three things that I have picked up from my parents that I would consider to be the most important lessons that they have taught me; One from my mother, One from my father, and the last I have learned from both of them through their past actions and their present actions.

The first thing that I learned from my mother and from her father is that no matter what happens in life, always smile, and always find the good in things. To my mother, nothing else matters except that she is happy, and that the people she cares about are happy. I believe that sometimes my mom will put other people’s happiness above hers and that she goes out of her way to make people happy, even if it means that she will not be as happy as she could have been. When I was discussing college, and which ones I would want to go to, and the possible careers that I had in mind, my step dad was baffled when I told him that I did not care about a high-paying job. He does not understand the outlook on life that my grandfather, my mother and I all share that is that no matter what happens in life, we always smile.

Smiling is the key ingredient to a happy life. One smile can go a long way. Studies have shown that if a person is in a bad mood and they see a person smiling at something, their mood lightens up and they will wear a smile upon their face as well. This tendency of humans to repeat a smile that we see creates a chain effect where a simple smile from one person can brighten several people’s lives any given day.

Not only does the act of smiling brighten another person's day, I have also found out that it can brighten your own day. When something does not go the way I had planned it to, or if I am ever down, I always think of what my grandpa told me one day, “No matter how bad life gets, always find the good in it and smile because life is too short to waste it with a frown on your face.” I could tell that he had told this to my mother when she was a child, and that she had passed that lesson down to my siblings and myself. On my last day of Newspaper during my senior year of high school, our adviser made us give a speech about the past year, and I brought up that quote and by the end of my speech, had a few people crying and the entire class raising their hands to respond to my speech. I knew then that it was a powerful lesson, and that I should hold it close to my heart and never let life get me down, and to always shoot for happiness even if it means having a harder life.

Though my father was not around for the better half of my earlier years, he still has taught me a very important lesson that had I never learned it, I would hardly be the man that I am today. What I am talking about is the fact that when it boils right down to it, all you really have left is your morals and religion.
My dad is not the kind of man that you find at church or listening to the latest Christian rock CD, but he is my source of religious inspiration. I have spent countless hours in the car driving from and to father’s house with him talking about nothing but religion and morals. One of our favorite pieces of discussion is the Apostle John’s Revelation on the island of Patmos where Christ came to him and showed him the events of the end of the world. It’s no hidden fact that these times are nigh, and we talk about the importance of religion when those times come. My father will sometimes even say jokingly, “You know, I almost feel like packing up and living out in the woods by myself and God just to get out of all of this corruption.” He will then continue and explain that thought by saying that he does not want to be in the epicenter when Christ comes back and that he does not want to be hunted down for his belief in Christ as our redeemer.

This is the lesson that I have picked up from him; because I believe in the true God, I will be hated my many, and loved by few. I will be ridiculed and tormented for my faith, and all for what? Nothing in this life of course, but is not 80 years of suffering worth it for an eternity with my creator in heaven.

The final lesson that I have learned from both of my parents is to have a good marriage. When I was about 5 years old, my parents got a divorce, and they both remarried a few years afterward. During their first marriage to each other, all that they ever did was fight, and even now in their new marriages, they still fight with their new spouse.

My mother has always told me that I have to find a woman that I can’t stand to be without, and that I can’t stay mad at when we do fight. Her and my step dad fight every other day, usually about things that do not matter in the grand scheme of things, but that are picked out and brought up just out of annoyance with one another. I hear them fight, and I am smart enough to figure out the underlying properties of the fights and I simply take it all in and learn from their fights.

About a year ago, I was in a really bad relationship with a girl, and my mother had told me to make a list of every attribute or skill or quality that I wanted in a spouse, and when I had compiled the list, my current girlfriend had none of the specifications on the list. I was told to be as picky as I wanted to be because I can only get married once, in theory. The first two items were religion and morals and I have not found many girls that I am attracted to and that share those same values as I do except for two. It is safe to say that I broke up with her a few weeks after I had finished the list and found out that she was in fact the complete opposite of that list. I have only dated one girl since then simply because nobody fits my standards anymore except for those two that I mentioned earlier. I have very bad communication problems with one of them, and the other one lives in Florida. God will guide me through this I am sure, and I will trust his judgment. This was a lesson well taught, and a lesson well worth the pain to learn personally.

All of three of these lessons fit together into one another, though it may not seem so at first. If you combine any of the two then you end up with the third as the result. If you are happy and have a strong relationship with God, then you will find a good spouse. If you are happy and have a good spouse, you only have God to thank for it. If you have a strong faith and a good spouse, then God has given you a happy life. I may not thank my parents all too often for teaching me so many important lessons, but I’m sure that if they ever read this they would know how much they really mean to me, even though I may not show it at times. Thank you, mom and dad and thank you God for good parents.

Write about a time that you were lied to and how that made you feel.

I have eight minutes to write about how I felt when I was lied to once. Well, I have been lied to many times, and I myself have lied many times. I cannot recall one particular instance where I was lied to and felt an immense amount of sorrow because I usually do not care anymore when I find out they lied to me. My parents have been pretty straight forward since day one, and they do not sugar coat the truth with white lies, and do not cover up error with big lies. Not, the fact that I had some strange idea why my parents got a divorce was not a result of a lie, but a withholding of information for the good of everyone involved. I filled in the blanks with made up stories until I was told the whole story. How bad it would have been to have that information before getting to know my dad, and maybe not of giving him a chance to begin with. I am guessing that I am getting slightly off topic, so I will try and resume my writing on the topic. As a result of my not being able to recall any great lie told to me, I could only infer on what the pain would feel like when I see those people that I have lied to, and the grief that my lies have caused them. It would sound sadistic to say that I only lie to observe, but that is not the case. I observe because I have lied, not the other way around.

If you found $1,000,000 in a dumpster, what would you do with it?

Before I did anything with a million dollars, that I found in a dumpster, I would first take a minute to analyze my life and how I got to the point where I was in a dumpster looking for something that was actually worth while... I would no doubt have to think for a very long time about it, because I can not for the life of me imagine myself in any dumpster anywhere looking for something.

I would suppose that after the initial shock of realizing that I was actually in a dumpster, I would then proceed to the bank and deposit half of it into my savings account. I would of course explain to everyone that I had found it in a dumpster in hopes of creating a fad for dumpster diving. I would find it amusing and would justify my reason for being in that dumpster with that fact alone.

After depositing half of that money, I would then proceed to buy a house. I would probably buy a house that cost no more than $300,000. With the rest of the money, I would pay off the mortgage for my church so that they would not have all of the financial restrictions that they have. I'm sure that they do not have that much left on it, so the rest of that money I would use to refurbish the church and school.

Now, back to the money that I banked. I would leave it there and never touch it. Let it gain interest, and I would continue working. Perhaps I would pay off my loans for school after I graduate, but then would never touch it again and simply continue in my career until retirement, at which point the money would have compounded into million and I would have the most fun an old man could have. I would get a wood shop in my backyard, and an art studio upstairs. I would have the most insane entertainment center that you had ever seen in a 65 year old's house.

If you were trapped in rubble, what would you think about? What could you find to be grateful for, and what would you regret?

If I were trapped under rubble for 8 days, I think that the first thoughts going through my head would be, "When am I going to die?" or "Who would be so fortunate as to pick up this single piece of rubble and free me from my demise?" The first few days would no doubt have little to no thought involved in anything worthwhile, but after those few days, I would realize that the worst that could happen is that I die and go to heaven. So I have to sit here a while under rubble and think. Maybe God wants me to reflect on a few things before passing. I would think about religion, and the mysteries of the universe and how they fit together, probably soon realizing that they don't fit together, the universe is a creation of God and that without him, nothing would be in the order it is today.

One thing that I would be grateful for is that I had lived a life that I had wanted to live for the most part, and that it was a decent life. Mistakes were made, but you forgive and forget, and hopefully others do that for you as well. I would be grateful for my parents who took me to church every Sunday, and who put me in a private elementary school, and then transferred me into a public high school. It really gave me a clear sense on the reality of some things. I am a realist, and I see things the way that they are. I don't sugar coat anything, and I don't down play anything. Things happen the way they do for a reason and if that's not good enough, oh well.

You ask us if there are things that we would regret. I don't think that I would regret anything in all honesty, because regret implies perpetual remorse, and I do not dwell on my mistakes. I take them, learn from then, hold onto those lessons and move on.