The Gift of the Magi Quickwrite

If I could save just one item from a disaster, I would save my picture album. My most cherished possession is my picture album of family and friends. The album is a scrapbook from Disney Land when I went there in 8th grade for a choir competition. The pictures in it are pictures from the whole 8th grade year, and some photos of family. Other than pictures, there were also signatures and messages. In a way the picture album was a gift, because all my friends wrote messages in it, so a gift of messages. They wrote in it because the picture album was a going away gift for me. What makes this album special is that all my friends wrote me messages inside. You might think that they could just send those messages to me over email or chat, but when it's down on paper it's different. It feels as if there's more feelings and reality to what they're writing down. Everyone has a different handwriting, and their writing styles are different, so when I read what they're writing, I can kind of imagine what they were like back then. It shows me that they really did like me as a friend and I was special and important to them. Without this picture album, I wouldn't of been able to be as happy to accept my Taiwan environment. The album gave me courage and happiness to open my mind and think "I could make friends like that in Taiwan too, so I have to be more social and nicer to everyone I meet."