Personal Narrative: Do The Right Thing

There I was on the block next to the High Bar. It was about 5:00 at night when my coach told me to do a Kip. As I got up on the bar my nose filled with the smell of chalk. I started to swing, and as I came out of my half turn I looked good. Everything seemed fine but as I came to the part of the Kip where I have to pull my legs up to the bar, I slammed my shins into the bar. My momentum was stopped and I dropped on to the mat, missing the Kip. I felt like I had let down my coach and I had let down myself too. That day I experienced failure. That failure made me want my Kip even more so I worked harder and had support from my teammates.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once stated, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This quote is a historical quote from World War II; however to me, its significance goes farther than that. This quote is the story of my transition from a child to an adult. I had a phobia of addressing large crowds; the fact that everyone’s attention would be on me was abashing. This was true until I reflected on how my phobia was keeping me back from a lot of opportunities, such as class presentations and future public speaking events. After deep reflection, I made the courageous decision to audition to speak at my eighth grade promotion ceremony. This was quite a leap for an introvert such as myself; however, I persevered my way through the audition and won the role as the MC. The valiant decision to speak at my promotion ceremony has shaped who I am and what I am able to accomplish today.

This post was probably my worst semester of college and I have no excuse for how things turned out with my classes. I'm not going to blame my job or my home life as it was me who failed and I have no one else to point the finger at. I had tried to pass the remedial math course five times previously and I started to lose hope that this one course would hold me back from finishing school. This hopelessness carried into my other courses because at the time I truly believed it was pointless to try in other courses if I can't pass this class that's been haunting since I started attending college.

If you were to ask me why I love running the hurdles you would probably expect to hear this long story about this life changing event that happened to me which made me love running, but that’s not the case. In high school I was on the shuttle hurdle team, I wasn’t the best nor the worst, but I was the most motivated. Everyday I went to practice and pushed myself to the point were my coach would make me stop. I wasn’t motivated to be the best nor to win every race. I was motivated by the thought of going to state or even winning state.

Virginia is a 53 year-old, heterosexual, African American female. Virginia has a long history of using crack cocaine. However, she has been clean of drugs for 6 months and for the past 1.5 months has been living in a residential recovery program group home. She has found a job as a dishwasher and desires to do the “right thing”. When asked to define the ‘right thing”, Virginia mentions to stay off drugs, stay off the streets, to stay clean, and save up money to move into her own apartment. Virginia did not complete the 11th grade. She mumbles when speaking and her speech is difficult to understand at times. When speaking to her, one often has to rephrase the question or revisit the question to get a more accurate response. Virginia enjoys

My eyes fluttered open and I found myself there again. I always find myself in the same place, stuck in the exact moment of time when it all happened. I struggled to get a hold of myself. Is this a memory or am I still in Afghanistan?

The morning sun is peering through the small window in the corner of my room, hitting me right in the face; of all places in my room it hits on my pillow, my head, and my eyes. It’s another summer day like the rest nothing to do and at the age where I haven’t got my license yet. I get up from bed with the same chip on my shoulder that I went to bed with last night because my mom wouldn’t rent me a movie from the TV. To most people it seems dumb to get mad at but I was young and went to a school where every kid had money and everything they wanted, plus it didn’t help that I didn’t have a video game console. I was bored and I just wanted to see this new movie that I didn’t get to see in theaters cause my mother said we needed to be, “smart with

One Saturday morning I woke up to go hinting as usual every weekend. I climbed out of my bed with a good night’s sleep and got dressed. I made my way to the living room to drink some coffee with my daddy. It was in December so it was pretty cold outside. I sat around for a few minutes talking to daddy and watching the news on TV. We were arguing on who was going to hunt the “creek stand” as we call it. It’s a old box stand down a really long over grown trail that has been in the family for a long time. It is located in the wood yard hunting club in Angie, LA, my hometown. We finally got finished arguing and he said I could hunt the “creek stand”. So I went to my room and grabbed my Remington model 770 .270 caliber rifle with a 80mm Nikon scope,

I sat down with my boy on the recliner he hopped up as I read the paper back to him. This seemed Like a cozy get up for a boy to grow up in, but as I began to read my mind was adrift into other things. I had to split sometime soon but I couldn’t help think “what awaits me there?” I thought of a time when I lived in the city, New Orleans. Late one night while I was a private dick I lit my cigarette and began listening to the smooth jazz of the night. The cool wind of the night brushed my face and wavered my smoke as I pulled my hat down I noticed some grifter out of the corner of my eye. I kept walking. The sly grifter moved along the shadows.

The second I walked into middle school, I knew what I wanted to do, and how I intended to do it. Growing up, I was always taught to value education since nobody in my family had gone to college. Questions about college were frequently met with blank stares and dismissive shrugs. It was regarded as unchartered territory, and I planned to conquer it. My earliest memory of my grandmother was when I was 8 years old. Yearning for something to do, I resolved to learn Farsi, and began nagging my grandmother to teach me it. However, growing up in Iran, she never learnt how to read or write, and so she couldn't write my name, or even teach me the alphabet. My 8-year-old mind couldn't grasp the idea that my grandmother was illiterate. I went to school every day, learned how to write

One should stay within its limits since I also know, how to fire. One should stay within its limits since I also know, how to fire.

It was a cold autumn morning when I heard the news coming from my alarm clock radio. Two people had won the lottery winnings from yesterday's drawing. They get to split a great prize, both people got to take home over 3 million dollars. I have been playing the lottery for about ten years now, I have only won three or four thousand, hoping to hit it big. For eight years I have been cleaning and cooking in a half kitchen with dinette. The small apartment had that smell as if something had been wet and moldy. I have had to listen through paper thin walls of, shouting, fighting, and the occasional grunts from some dirty old man upstairs. The constant running trains echo inside the entire apartment building. The living room was just big enough for

Elizabeth is sitting in the living room on the couch in her pajamas. The lights are dim and low and papers are scattered around her. The home is silent except for her fingers tapping away at the keyboard and the occasional shuffling of paper work. A notification sound comes from the computer. Elizabeth leans in and stares at the screen with her eyebrows crumpled as she reads. She leans back and her face becomes blank as she stares off into the distance. She closes the laptop, stands up and goes into the bedroom. As she approaches the bedroom door she reaches up to the top of the doorframe, grabs and object and puts it into the pocket of her pajama pants. Elizabeth enters the bedroom, climbs onto the bed, brings her knees to her chest, wraps

Jakob and I haven’t talked since then. Mormor comes to visit sometimes, but whenever I’m in the same room as him he just glares at me. Something in him changed that day, I just didn’t know what. I’ve tried to distant myself from him, but Lunenburg is a small town, and we’re neighbours, so it’s rather difficult.

Racing at night going One-hundred and forty miles an hour on US-27 holding the lead, Shift six gear, speed topped out at two-hundred miles per hour passing by cars smoothly. I chanted I am immortal, I am a god! while I pushed my sports bike to its limit. Suddenly a black car approaches. WHAM! I get Rammed from behind and lose control of my bike slamming into a Semi-truck up ahead. Lights out. When I peeked my eyes, I saw 4 humans around me. Thump after thumb I believe I was in an ambulance rushing down the turnpike. I looked around and the first words that came to my head are “Rick this is just a dream”. This is the story of how I escaped from an illegal laboratory that clones and modifies humans.