The women in my family cook. When I say cook, I mean three courses, complete with sprigs of parsley and some lemon sorbet to cleanse the palate. My Grams would verbally slay the woman who thought that cooking meant tossing the kids a Lean Cuisine and running out the door so she could have that […]
I look at the stage in front of me and my body is seized by a fear that, until now, was entirely foreign to me. My mind wanders from the wooden platform before me and I find myself sitting beside Winston Smith in Room 101 faced with hundreds of hungry rats encroaching upon us, then […]
I’m exceptionally good at focusing on insignificant things in life, like the shoes I wear. I have that pair of shoes I had to buy for Winter Ball freshman year, with the one-inch heel, because I absolutely could not be taller than my date. I have four-year-old cheerleading sneakers that have been through endless practices […]
People sacrifice everything just to come to America and live a better life, but they still often struggle once they get here. In the article’s “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska and “Facing Poverty with the Rich Girl’s Habit” by Suki Kim, these two authors discuss their Hardships coming to America and how America treats […]
The donation money graciously given to the school should be used on adding honors and courses to the high school curriculum. An honor’s course is a class that can be taken through the school, a college level class giving the student who completes the course to receive double-credit. The student will receive high school and […]
The blue paint, vibrant against the green background, sponges into blobs creating a rounded, multiple-pedals effect. As white is added to the very edges, just a tint, the colors slowly blend together. I dip my paintbrush in the bright, lime green paint and glide it from the bottom of the flower to the floor. I […]
The drawer has gotten old and it gets stuck when I try to pull it out. I make a mental note to oil its metal parts as I turn to examine the contents of my long-forgotten chest. Bits and pieces of my life, that’s what they reveal themselves to be. They have been collected unconsciously; […]
During a discussion in my AP English class, my teacher instructed us to open our notebooks and write one word that sums up each of ourselves in entirety. My classmates around me scrawled words like “student,” “friend,” and “daughter.” I wrote “dreamer.” This word, however, means much more to me than a scribble in a […]
On July 20th, 2008, Chengdu airport, a gray rainy day, the scenes along the road shocked me. The buildings and trees were razed to the ground. Miserable and despondent people wandered along the road. A subtle dirge can be heard in the quiet street. There was a smell of death in the air; the atmosphere […]
“Hello Bella!” said Levi as he lifted his hand up to give me an enthusiastic high five.”Hey Levi!” I said. I moved into my assigned classroom, stunned and delighted.On any other day, in any other situation, this friendly exchange might seem pretty unremarkable.But, you see, Levi is a seventeen-year-old autistic boy with extremely limited verbal […]