Personal Narrative: Raquel

On my way back from the grocery store there is a detour for road construction. I end up having to take a very dark back road. I see an abandoned insane asylum. The idea that has been fresh in my mind for some time comes to my head instantly. I pull up in front of the old building and think about how in my plan I want to create a haunted house to kill the people that who attend it looking for a good time and to display their dead bodies as part of the attraction yet unknown to them. That this will be the very place that I will create and finish my plan. There are multiple small trap rooms with creepy cages in the middle creating a haunted house for the public that is going to become my organized plan hoping that no mistakes come along to mess it up.

It wasn’t like any other swim practice, no, not like any other I’d ever gone to. No one usually moved to Minot, North Dakota that was also in swimming, so when Emily Pitcher and her family moved to town and came to practice, it was quite a shock for everyone on the team. She moved from Colorado and she had 2 younger brothers and a younger sister as well. They seemed nice enough but there was something about Emily, who was my age, which seemed a bit off.

Last year, 2016, scaled to my first tournament that would be played at Marista. I would not

Having a dad that is in the military can be tough. I had to adapt to new places and go through situations that made me doubt who I really could be. Through it all my family has always been there for me. When I moved to Virginia it was hard for me to adapt. After I joined the soccer team the situation brightened up. It’s coming to that time of leaving my family. They will be moving to Knoxville, Tennessee when I graduate. Radford is close to Tennessee but still in Virginia. I seek to join Radford’s nursing program and soccer program. Radford has everything that I dream in a college and more.

As a third and fourth grader, I participated in choir. I enjoyed it then but decided to stop so that I would have more time for homework. In the beginning of seventh grade, when it came time to decide if you want to join choir, Maria Abbulone and I chose to sign up. We thought it would be a fun experience because we enjoy singing, and we had done it in past years. As choir practices began, Maria and I thought that it would be a fun experience for the year, and we might decide to do it in eighth grade. As the choir kicked into full swing, everything was going well.

I remember that fateful day waking up to my mom’s homemade pancakes. She would always get up early on Tuesday mornings and make them for me. They were the best pancakes ever, they were never dry, always light and fluffy. They were mouthwatering, and I couldn’t resist them and I followed the smell to the kitchen.

I have raised my voice for, and will continue to raise my voice for, people less fortunate than myself. More specifically however, I often stand up for and help my autistic older sister, Abby. Ever since I can remember, I have felt obligated to fulfill my duty as a "little-big brother", because she is older than me. Whether it be taking her to school, taking her to baseball games, or playing "Dogoply" with her, I have tried to imprint a positive attitude on her so that she can continue to grow into an even greater person than she already is. One time after a football game junior year, I was hanging out with my classmates when the topic of Abby came up. They all talked about how they were the best of friends with her and how they loved her. Sure, all of

I know that Alysson and I have been friends for a very long time now, but last week we had gotten into a fight about how someone at the table had taken her spot. During Choir she told me that she felt like I was replacing her, which started the entire argument. I told her that I wasn't replacing her, and I couldn't make the other person move just because she wanted to sit there. She ended up sitting on the floor for a few days until the principal told her to go find a seat to sit in. They got into a small argument, and I tried to convince her to stop arguing with the principal. After our magor fight she had tried to start two more arguments on monday. One during breakfast, and another one during choir. I told her that she could be mad all

Debby is the Chief Financial Officer of the organization I work for. My boss had also flown in to the office to support Debby at an award event for the Best CFO for Orange County, which she was nominated for. During lunch we talked briefly about Debby and the type of leader she is. Based on his feedback and my first interactions with her during this visit, I was very impressed. I asked my boss during our 1:1 meeting if he thought she would be willing to do an interview with me for class. He said he thought she would be and said he would ask her during his 1:1 session later that week with her (My boss reports to Debby). He came back later that week and let me know that she was very excited that I had asked and said she was waiting for me to schedule something on her calendar.

I have started, stopped and come back to this email on numerous occasions over the past few days. So while I could parse my words a thousand different ways, fuck it, I will attempt to be concise which will hopefully translate to clarity. No promises though.

After returning from school and surviving another day of torture. My birthday wasn't the way I imagned it'll be. Taking that stupid girl's sweater, which smelled like an old dead decomposed body. I only wanted to celebrate my birthday, not wear another girl's sweater. Nobody even dares wearing that red sweater. If it was from a well known brand. I would keep it as my birthday gift, but God it was rigged from all sides only to be replaced with another type of wool knitted on to it. I kept this red sweater for some time, but I kept it outside my room, because the smell was horrible. My parents couldn't even handle the smell too, so I threw it on the chair outside our garden. We usually have BBQ party outside our garden every summer.

Decades from now, I’m not going to remember how I felt at this very moment in time. I’m not going to remember my favorite song or my favorite TV show. I may remember nothing at all. I may forget about the lifestyle I’m living and the people I value the most. I want to be able to read this twenty years from now and be able to feel the same emotions reading it as I did writing it. Lizzy, here is what was important to you at this moment in time.

Five years ago, I did something impulsive. I turned myself into a cliché when I decided to be spontaneous and hopped in my car and took off to Vegas. I had no idea that decision would come back to haunt me. Now, I am a super star, engaged to a rock star, and have everything I could ever want. Until my world implodes around me and I find myself running back to where it all began.

“This is so weird, why did we sign up for this?” I asked said to my friends as I looked at all the Jesus freaks bellowing out their so called “favorite” Christian tune. It seemed like every song was their favorite. And I was going to have three whole days of this on the actual weekend of the conference. I did not understand how I was going to be able to handle this.

Such a silly thing, being scared of something that's net even there. Just another monster hiding under the bad and you have to wait for mother of father come and make it ‘go away’, but you won’t let that stop you from taking a stroll will you? Of course not. Your one of the last people in town that hasn’t gone completely mad, after all the disappearances anyone would be on edge, but it's been months, surely it was just a hoax. There are rumors going around saying they just ran away, first it was Matthew Dartel, you’ve spoke to him a couple of times but nothing more than acquaintances. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed but he wasn’t a bad kid, just always in the wrong place at the wrong time, his parents probably just kicked him out. The kid can barely pass highschool. Then don’t forget Margo Fey, now there was someone who couldn’t say no to anything, no matter the task it shall be done as Margo Fey was up to it. You can always hear something about her around the school, even with her disappearance, some say a job just went wrong, others say just just got fed up with such a quiet town so she just left; either way.