Sample LARP Essay
Fall 2004

You go away to college each year, leaving behind the house you grew up in for the last twenty years. You can’t see it everyday, but you know it’s still standing tall on that acreage you remember so fondly. Its sounds, smells, and appearance are still vividly clear in your mind as the time passes along throughout the year. No matter how hard college life is, the safe and calming thought is the thought of going home soon for break. In Ender’s Game, a science fiction novel, Ender wanted dearly to return once again to normal childhood experiences. Sam Peek from To Dance with the White Dog never could picture being happier than he was right there on his farm. Corrie Ten Boom in The Hiding Place grew up in a house passed down from generations, a house that held so many family memories and secrets. What else could you possibly call home!

Ender’s Game was a novel about a child prodigy who was supposed to save the Earth from the Buggers. He was taken from his family (mom, dad, brother, sister) and shipped to a galactic space station where he was to learn the maneuvers and tactics he would use to save Earth. From the very beginning, the commanders kept him isolated from all the other kids. Feeling alone and without a friend in the world, loneliness set in and the urge to go home increased. He once thought of sabotaging missions, failing tactic schools and assignments in the hope of returning home to see Valentine, his sister. That urge grew so strong he refused to go to command school until he had returned to see Valentine. He thought he was going home, but instead he was taken to an isolated location and Valentine was brought to him. As most college students find out, when they get home they may still feel out of the routine even in the most comfortable place they know, home.

Sam Peek in To Dance with the White Dog had just lost his wife at the beginning of this story. He lived in a white farm house where he and his wife had raised seven children. I can’t even begin to imagine the memories he had collected over the years. It must have been hard for him to turn the corner to the kitchen in the morning and not see her standing at the stove or to roll over in their bed and not feel her beside him. He left the house once for a class reunion, but he missed his wife dearly and could only think of the comforts of home. There wasn’t much he enjoyed now without his wife, but he still felt her presence when he was in the comfort of his own home.

Corrie Ten Boom in The Hiding Place was the daughter of a watch repairman during WWII. She and her family helped the Jews hide in their three- story cobblestone. The house was kept in the family for generations and would hopefully be passed on to the next generation one day. Corrie and her sister were taken to work camps after being caught. Betsie, Corrie’s sister, died, but before she did she had a vision of a house with large windows, a magnificent floor and statues. A place to dream of, a hope that kept them alive. When Corrie was released (by accident) from the camp, a woman offered her a house. It was the house that Betsie had described to a tee. Corrie lived in this house for many years, but she wished to return to the comforts of her original house. She did return and that is where she spent the remainder of her life.

Some say home is where the heart is. Your heart is with your family and your family is where your childhood took place. Your home is the safe haven, never budging and always there. You maybe can’t see it, but your memories will never let you forget it. Family and your home are the biggest comfort in your life and will remain so until your dying day.

Written by a Dana Student, Nov. 2004