Personal Narrative: Going, Gone !

I come across a rear projection TV on the side of the road one day, load it up, and take it home. I eagerly spend a good four hours stripping it down and saving as much as I can. I end up with a 48” fresnel lens, two hefty speakers, a couple large capacitors, three glass lenses, and a glass mirror. Left over is a box of electronic waste and the particle board skeleton of a TV. I take the electronics to my local electronics recycling center, and set the wooden frame on the curb. I took 70 lbs. of trash and turned it into 10 lbs. of treasure ripe for projects, 30 lbs. of recyclables that would have gone to a landfill, and 30 lbs. of refuse that I had fun

At the age of nine, I watched my uncles lowering my father into the ground and what took his life was addiction. All my life I have watched addiction take over the lives of people, I love. My father's side of the family, besides my grandparents, has always faced addiction. Although, addiction runs through my blood, I will not take the same path I have watched people take all my life. I will be the one to end the cycle. Watching the majority of my family waste their life has motivated me to change the direction and better myself from living a life of addiction and misery.

I have lost my grandpa and have not gotten over the idea of it. When I was in the sixth grade, my grandfather was very sick; he could barely walk. While my grandmother and some other family members went uptown for some household things, food, and medication, I was told to take care of him. Yet, I wanted to play with my friends outside. He told me to go ahead and play, but for some reason I just got mad and slammed the door and left. Around nighttime, I seen an ambulance pull up to my grandparents’ house.

When I think about an event or accomplishment that marked a significant transitional period in my life, I’m taken back to the days of home runs, strikes, and double plays. Yes, I’m referring to good old fashion softball.

From early one, I was a standout in baseball. From ages 8-13, I made the league’s travel all-star team. Being the only black kid and the only one in public school, I often found myself sometimes out of my comfort zone when it came to hanging out with the team. Generally, the team consisted of the same players and coaches every year, so the faces rarely, if ever, changed. As we got older, things began to change. I eventually found myself on the pitching mound for my respective league teams starting at age 10. Now, not to toot my own horn, but I was hands down one of the better pitcher’s considering that I was younger than many of my fellow peers. By the time I was twelve, I could throw a ball almost 70 mph. At age 13, my team went a whopping 15-1 beating teams by an average margin of

Each day we saw a different game. One night we saw the Los Angeles Angels vs. San Francisco Giants. During the game I was able to catch one home run ball and one foul ball. I couldn’t believe my luck.

Starting over. Those two simple words pretty much sum up where I am at in my life at the moment. I am a 34 year old mother of three. I have never been to college. My husband just recently left me. It has been a whirlwind summer to say the least, but before I get into what brought me back to school, I'll start at the beginning. I was born in FL., and quite literally spent all my time either at the beach or running bare foot on my grandparents farm. I loved every second. Shortly after I turned 8 my mom met my step-dad, and we were quickly headed on our first big adventure, moving to Texas! While I missed my family in FL., I can not tell you enough how happy I was that my mom married my dad. He has been a rock and solid foundation for me my whole

Hi iam Edgardo Flores i was born in casa grande, az not that far away from our state capital,Phoenix, Az.theres nothing better to do in a hot summer than going out with the friends to a lake and have a blast riding jet skis boats and my favorite, swimming!My activites of the day are shooting,riding horses,and my favorite one is quad riding.Thats right! ive been doing these fun exciting hobbies since i was 9 years old.pretty young huh?

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.

Who knew that things could change so abruptly, it almost felt that my whole world was flipped within a blink of an eye. Things were going to be different from now on, the people, the weather, even the fresh summer breeze from the coast will soon become a cold bitter winter breeze. This all came to my mind when my mom announced to my family that we’re moving, to New Jersey, once my school goes on summer break. At first, I began to panic, why do we have to move? Why can’t we just live here? We don’t even know anyone there, except for my aunt. We just moved here three years ago from New Jersey, and we didn’t like it, that’s why we only lived there for a month. Then why would we would we like it now? I question my mom, and I demanded explanations

Since i was 6 years old i have been throwing and catching all sorts of balls. I first start-ed by playing baseball it was one of favorite things to play in this world. I consider baseball very important because it makes me think in the good old times with my father. Is a sport that help you create leadership and teamwork, but the most important the loving of the family. I remember running threw the field and hitting every base and just making it feeling that rush in my body. practice with the team at school was every other day at the park.

The game of baseball being one. Today, parents are starting kids in baseball younger than ever. In fact, it isn’t too uncommon to start training as young as 5 years old. Unfortunately, I wasn’t introduced to the game of baseball until I was 14. Up until this point in my life, I had not the slightest idea regarding baseball, nor had I ever seen it played. Like most kids I fell in love with the game. Nearly all of my friends had been playing the game their whole lives, and being blessed with a competitive nature, I made it my goal to play alongside them on our varsity 5A high baseball team. From that moment on, every weekend, or day off I had, I was playing baseball, each time picking up on more and more advice. A few years later, on the day of our freshman baseball tryout, I found out that I did not make the jv team with the rest of my friends. Rather than letting the absence of my name on a list determine if I played a game that I loved, I continued to try to sharpen my skills. When the time came for me to try again, I was so confident in the amount of time and effort I put forth to make the varsity team. I was twenty pounds heavier, I was faster, and an all-around better baseball player. Only to find out, that I again had not made varsity, and the same for the next year. It wasn’t until my senior year, because of UIL rules that I was mandatorily placed on varsity. By this

Get me out of here. I know something is about to happen, I feel it in my gut. It's a setup for failure, really. A party at an estranged house on the edge of the city full of nothing but intoxicated and incapacitated teens. Something is bound to go down. I started to think of ways to get out without just bluntly saying it.

Sorry in advance if this is be too much information for some. . . .

It’s 9:00 at night. It’s been a long day at camp, filled with baked oatmeal and blob time, friendship bracelets and flagpole. My cabin, Mohave, has just finished our night swim at the Richard G. Marsh. While we wait to shower back at the bunks, we belt out High School Musical tunes, and feast on the treats from our care packages. But today, something is different.