Personal Narrative: Loss Of Power

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

It’s the day I have to move to the army's campsite. I grab my bag and swing them on my shoulder, it weighs a ton it feels like my shoulder’s gonna break. Sophie was peeking through my room door, as I was about to stand up she ran to the living room curled up into a ball making loud thud and sobbing noises. Outside of the house, I hug my mom as tight as I could, I don’t want to move any single inch of my bone. I want to stay like this forever. I felt a drop of water behind my shoulder and I know that it was her tears. I don’t want to leave them but I have to. It was time to let go but she didn’t want to, I grab her arm and slightly push them back.

She got up and walked into another room. The house was way bigger than the family units and was filled with objects and tools I’ve never seen before. While she was gone, I just watched Gabriel sleeping, cuddled up in the blanket. Before she returned, I fell asleep myself.

We were walking for a few hours. My feet throbbed and my ears were ringing from Taylor’s whining. Finally I could see it, the old abandoned house I discovered one day while riding my bike. The door was barely hanging onto its hinges, and there were several windows missing or broken. I pried open the splintering oak door. In the house there was two rooms. One, the one you first enter, was most likely a kitchen and living room. There was a sofa with faded fabric and springs popping out everywhere. An old furnace sat in the corner with rotting charcoal inside. The door of the furnace was missing rendering the whole thing useless. The other room was much smaller. It was a bedroom. There was a twin sized bed. The frame was rusty and missing a leg. I pulled the mattress off of it, so we could sleep on it. There were springs and stuffing sticking out of the mattress. It wasn’t too dirty to sleep on because I pulled off the moldy sheets. We laid down on the mattress. Taylor started snoring within minutes. I was worried about Mom. She had had a seizure before. It was because of her failing liver. Last time, social services took me and my sisters to a girl’s home. They served cooked vegetables that smelled like rotten seafood and chicken noodle soup with frozen chicken. After Mom got out of the hospital she got custody of us, but the judge told her if it happened again she wouldn’t get us back. My older sister, Becca, was eighteen so she didn’t have to

I want to leave, I want to disappear. Not a vacation, but that spontaneous quick escape with no bothers, just an unrestricted trip to free the mind and enjoy the bits of silence. To go by car to see how the scenery around me changes as I kill the distance, while listening to my favorite music as loud as I can. Just shout out my lungs with my terrible singing. As the music plays, I will grab a book, which will get all my beliefs and views away. No matter what the book will be about. As long as it would get me away, away from here. There would be just me and the characters of the novel, who struggle, fight, and compete, while they face delight, pleasure, and glory. Every so often, I will stop at the cafes on the road to grab some food, which

The last memories we had with our families was when these men in black killed an outsider for trying to enter the island. We watched the men in black chase after the people in the streets forcing them to go into their houses and watch a man who I had seen before make a statement on television. The man was tense, stiff, and his stature looked forced.

A shadow of light cast itself across the room illuminating my sister who lay next to me in bed. She had pushed all the blankets on my side, sprawled her legs across the entire king size bed, and rested her head on my pillow, so close to me that I could taste the putrid odor on her breath. I glared at her. As stealthily as I could, I slipped off the blankets and got out of bed. The thermostat read 78 degrees. I pressed the snowflake button ten times so the thermostat read 68 degrees: the perfect sleeping temperature. Each time I pressed the button a high pitched beep filled the void in the silent room, echoing off of each of the walls. My sister's eyes flew open on the tenth beep. She sat upright and looked at me with an immense anger. Then she screamed. Before she could finish yelling my name, my parents were awake and out of bed, running over to her in alarm. “She tried to turn down the heat,” my sister shrieked through her heavy sobs. She started flailing around, rolling in the sheets and punching the mattress. I made a beeline for the bathroom, where I had hid three hours earlier when she had the exact same melt down. Through the

Sadly, once the Christmas tree had been put away and the New Year's Eve confetti had been swept up, I could find no excuse not to tackle my most pressing post-holiday need - losing some weight. Most adults put on at least a little weight over the holidays, and crowded fitness center parking lots every January attest to the fact that a good many want to then shed that weight, at least until New Year's resolutions are forgotten. I decided to see if I could combine my weight-loss goals with my interest in technology. I found a free app for my Android phone called Lose it!, and suddenly the dreary chore of losing weight became a bit more interesting. Lose it! is available for both Android phones and the iPhone. The app works well on my Droid

Slivers of sunlight shine through the blinds and into my eyes as I wake up. After I fully wake up, I observe my pink and purple bedroom walls, unaware that I will never again view them with such carelessness. Sluggishly, I saunter through the hallway, towards the bathroom, but I pause as I hear my mom sobbing in a tone I have never heard before. Although I have never heard this tone before, I detect the sorrow in her cry. Deep down, I know exactly why she cries: my dad has left. I slowly step into her bedroom and the words, “It’s true”, are written plainly on her tear drenched face.

More people would understand if I was in a wheelchair. Everything would be clear if I had a terminal illness or something wrong on the outside. The problem is that my wounds aren't discernible to most people. My scars aren't tangible. Instead of receiving sympathy from those I first let in, I was told to get over it. I was told that I wasn’t depressed because I have a loving family. I was told I wasn’t sad because I’m well off, because I do well in school, because I’m a guy. Despite that, I learned to find strength in my brokenness so I could make myself whole again.

The saying goes “Change is what makes the world go round”. Well, my world would move much smoother if I got rid of a few things. Table condiments, meatloaf and roller chairs have got to go! My world would be a better place if these items didn’t exist!

Outside as I lean onto the rugged, worn down wall I can see her scarlet dripping face clouded with never-ending tears. My hands are frosted from the trembling weather, and my tears have blocked the sound of cars and smell of firewood. It’s only been three days, yet the feeling of being alone in such a big world has filled us with angst. My mom is right in front of me, through the fogged over window I’m gazing in. She has somehow found a way to fill an empty house with dread, which overbears the silence and covers up the scent of vanilla from the bile filling her mouth. Her pain fills me with dread as I taste the freezing sap from the window seal and catch a slight smell of the pine trees that surround us.

I got up to get a drink of water, and a sliver of light from the basement caught my eye. Carefully, quietly, I crept down the stairs, careful that my yellow and brown horsey pajamas didn’t make that slip, slip sound they usually do on the wooden stairs. I peeked around the corner to see my dad at his big oak desk, the old wood stove purring quietly in the corner, casting a warm orange glow around him. I felt my heart swell up a bit. He was figuring; punching the keys on the calculator, shuffling the papers, and pausing to think...and sigh. Punch, shuffle, think, sigh. Punch, shuffle, think, sigh. He absent mindedly reached out and stirred his light brown, watered down whiskey, Old Crowe, swirling the melting ice and liquid around like leaves on a mellow autumn day, the tiny slivers of ice making a musical, tinkling sound. He took a deep breath, closed the books, organized his work space, clicked off the light, and turned toward the fire. I crept down the last step, and scampered over to him. He startled a bit, but then, silently, he took my hand and made room for

I'm composing you this since it's opportunity sure things are talked about. I contemplated how and where we turned out badly as I looked over some old messages between you and I. When you were conveyed in Qatar, the legitimate answer is we quit being there for each other. We communicated such a great amount of adoration to each other and were so worried with the other individual rather than ourselves. As I read it dishearten to me to perceive how we made this bond amid our marriage to let everything come apart out of childishness. We both were experiencing self issues, I was pregnant you sent. I couldn't relate and being pregnant turned into all I contemplated. Which lead to feeling undesirable on both sides. It never sounded good to me why

My sources of power come from being the chair of the House Internal Matters Committee and the House Rules Committee, as well as being a Hispanic Republican. Another source of power comes from being an incumbent, who has been elected four times. Since I am the chair of the House Internal Matters Committee, I have a larger influence over the bills that are considered since this is one of three committees who considers the proposed bills and have the power to pass, amend, or kill legislative proposals. Because I am chair of the House Rules Committee, which reviews legislation after it is passed through a standing committee in the House and before the bill goes to the full House, I serve as a gatekeeper for proposed legislation, working with other