Personal Narrative : Personal Essay

I had always assumed that my legs were strong and that I had decent muscle control, however, this thought was proven wrong at the beginning of my junior year in high school due to a detrimental injury. It was the first game of fall league for basketball, and within the first five minutes I had succumbed to an injury. Tearing my ACL and Meniscus has taught me to continue improving on my strength, not let this one injury keep me down, and to keep a positive mindset.

“I’m sorry. Am I in some kind of family matter?” I asked feeling a little out of place.

We all stayed in the auditorium practicing our breathing, doing our piece with emotion facing a wall, and just relaxing for the big night. I cried the whole afternoon, just thinking about everybody’s face when they found out that I was going to quit the team. I went to my coach and asked him if I could talk to him. When we stepped out of the auditorium, I told him how I felt and the fear that consumed me every time I thought about presenting my piece. He told me something that changed my way of thinking forever, he said “If you don’t face your fear tonight, it is okay, but you will miss out an opportunity that will change your life forever, and in the future, you will strongly regret your decision.” After he said those words he walked away and gave me some time to reflect upon the words that he had just told me. I sat down and thought about what was the right thing to do, and after an hour of reflection upon the possibilities, I finally decided, I was going to face my fear and present my

Tip toeing into the noisy classroom, I took a quick glance at the unfamiliar faces. The crowded room gave my nose a whiff of modeling clay, crayons and newly waxed floors. It was filled with dazzling pictures of the alphabet and a jigsaw puzzle rug. Ms. Soriano was mumbling. As I approached her, I heard her high

How does it feel when you get compared to everyone else? I was compared to my friends who were in gifted classes and I felt like a follower. I felt like a normal person in a group of extraordinary people. My friends would sometimes start to brag about what they did in math that day. Until I got a great teacher who always supported me.

Plav, Montenegro is a small, poor village in Europe. It is the place where my parents were born and raised. Even though I was born in Brooklyn, New York, I feel I was raised in Plav, Montenegro, too. Growing up in America, where the culture and traditions are so different from that of Montenegro, I was faced with the obstacle of trying to become part of mainstream America while maintaining my own culture.

“As you know, the Trials are coming up,” he said, evoking a groan from most of the students. “You will be sent off in groups of five to complete a quest with no help from your teachers.” The children sighed and rolled their eyes. “I know that you already know this, but we have to explain it every year. Anyway, you can choose your group this is your novice year. I suggest that you choose wisely. If you haven’t chosen a group by the designated date, you will be assigned to a

There is no other feeling quite like it. There are bobby pins jammed strategically into my skull, obnoxious red lipstick pasted across my face, and in every day life, I would be irked by such ridiculous amounts of makeup and hairspray. But I am concentrating too hard to notice. I am basking in the lights that beam between the blackness that protects me from witnessing the individual faces of the audience. I should be blinded by the amount of lights, but I am focusing on the millions of things that I have no choice but to remember. My teacher’s voice barks in my head. Hold your formation. Pull up your center. Keep your core engaged. Attack every movement. Don’t forget the choreography. Remember to smile. But no matter what, never stop counting to eight! Thoughts race around in my head, but simultaneously my mind feels empty. I feel like I am simply being me. It is one of the most vulnerable and adrenaline-inducing experiences I have ever had; and yet, I love nothing more in the world than being on stage.

One of my my family stories is that one time we went to las Vegas so the day before we packed our bags and we were going to drive there but before I had to help my little brother pack his bags because he did not know what to pack and then in one in the morning we all woke up and got ready to drive there and the reason we left early is because it was a twelve hour drive and when we got there we were tired from just sitting and just doing nothing for the twelve hours and they wanted to go play and they couldn't go without me and I was tired but I had to go because they told on me.

I could hear her weeping from the other side of the door now. My mother’s loud crying was only interrupted by the broken speech she tried to spit out between her sobs. The dimly lit, cramped waiting room mixed the sounds of despair with some poor rendition of Chopin that blared intrusively from the perches of a pair of cheap speakers in the corner. On a short wooden table there sat a couple of magazines advertising the new happenings within the lives of people I did not care about. Next to that was one of those children’s play toys with colorful metal pathways for wooden shapes to glide across; bead mazes I would later learn that they were called. I crossed my legs in my chair and sighed as I let the sounds assault my eardrums. This was just

Rachel had a sandwich, Daphne had a salad, Shannyn had soup from Panera, and Hope had Goldfish and applesauce. Jazz class was just twenty-five minutes away, so the girls had to eat quickly. As they ate, conversations floated around the table. “That was a fun class,” Daphne said quietly. “I liked it. It wasn’t too hard or too easy,” Shannyn added. The time for jazz slowly approached. The girls grabbed their jazz shoes and made their way into the jazz studio. Jazz class was just like any other ordinary class. The teacher, Miss Kennedy, had the girls do a warm-up, which consisted of push-ups, jumping jacks, crunches, and other cardio. After everyone finished, the girls were allowed to get a drink. It wasn’t a long drink break, because there was a great deal of work to do. Rachel got a solo in a dance they were working on. The class, even though it was only an hour long, felt like hours. The girls were dismissed for rehearsal, which was in a few minutes. Rachel and her friends got their pointe shoes on and grabbed their skirts. Slowly, everyone got into rehearsal. It took ten minutes for everyone to come into the studio. After a pep talk from

Wouldn’t you feel terrible if your teacher said that you hadn 't performed well after competing in the final round for one of the biggest ballet competitions in the world? Yeah, me too! Well, that’s exactly what happened to me and my friends along with some other insane situations. You know what all of our problems were caused by that day? MY TEACHER! Let me tell you how this all started.

The bell chimes as I close the door behind Shefali and I. After a long recital rehearsal, my best friend and I returned to our dance studio ready for auditions after a well-deserved trip to Dunkin Donuts. I entered the small lobby, welcomed by the familiar vintage rug and smell of Bath and Body Works spray mixed with sweat from determined dancers. Auditions were something I dreaded, but I also enjoyed the excitement of it all. This audition would control the next year of my life, as it determined which groups I got into for the upcoming performance season. I sip my Dunkin Donuts iced coffee, as I believed the caffeine would help ease the stress. I walked into the east studio, greeted by dance bags and shoes scattered on the wooden floor.

Most children look up to their guardians/parent with respect and trust. A parent should protect and nurture their child so they thrive in the “real world”. As a parent, you should not spoon feed your child forever and you shouldn't ignore them, but you should find the happy medium so that he/she can fight through some adversity. As a teenager, many people grow apart from their parents because they think they know everything. This personal narrative is about a time I thought I was too good for my parents.

After the woman was done handing the materials out, she stood at the front of the room, waiting as the timer ticked till the end. I reached over and clutched my pencil, and this time, my hands weren’t