1. As soon as I opened the door to the apartment, I knew that my roommate had played party host all weekend long. The smell of beer and cigarettes was enough to nearly knock me down before I even stepped inside. Every cheap beer brand was represented by the cans strewn across what used to be the floor. The smoking artists of the crowd had used cigarette ashes to create designs on the coffee table. Some chemistry types had even combined the two mediums (spilled beer and ashes) and invented a nice paste of spilled beer and ashes in hopes of changing our carpet from beige to dark brown, adding a little bit of grinding in for good meaure. Oh yes, what a party it had been.

Mode(s) of writing/thinking: Description

2. There are many ways that the university bookstore takes advantage of students. Everything from basic supplies to books that students are forced to purchase is overpriced. Pencils and supplies can be picked up for next to nothing everywhere else; in fact, many businesses give out free pens and pencils as part of their corporate marketing. Take those outrageous book prices. How much is that book worth new? And how many times over is it paid for by the time it is retired and a new one is chosen by the professor? The buyback amount given to students at the end of the semester rarely justifies the amount that a textbook was used in class. University bookstores have a long way to go to help out their students.

Mode(s) of writing/thinking: Illustration

3. Today I woke up late. I didn’t have time to make coffee. I was late for work. Customers yelled at me. My boss yelled at me. I had a flat tire when I went out to my car after work. I managed to find a ride home to escape the world. When it was all said and done, I was just glad to call it a day.

Mode(s) of writing/thinking: Narration

4. There's nothing interesting to watch on TV these days. For example, do you ever turn on the television on a Sunday morning? There's not much to watch, is there? Week days are nothing but hours and hours of silly soap operas and trashy talk shows. Evening programming isn't much better, with countless sitcoms of which no one even knows the name. There are quite a few dull programs on network television.

Mode(s) of writing/thinking: Illustration

5. My roommate has a very peculiar morning ritual. She tries to catch an extra ten minutes of sleep. However, she should know by now it just ends up making her run late for work. She’s tried setting all the clocks in her house ahead by ten minutes. It doesn’t help because she knows they are fast. I’ve suggested she put her alarm clock on the other side of the room to force her to get out of bed when it rings, but she forgets to do that each night. Her morning ritual catches up with her daily.

Mode(s) of writing/thinking: Cause and effect.