If my classmates were to give me a senior superlative, it would be “Biggest Titanic Freak.” It all started at age thirteen when I watched the three-hour-and-fifteen-minute James Cameron film at a sleepover. Now, many teenage girls obsess over the movie and maybe even know the lyrics to “My Heart Will Go On.” But I did not stop there...
From a young age I participated actively in sports. At school I loved playing basketball, volleyball, and anything else available. In eighth grade I was cut from both the volleyball and basketball teams. I did not know what to do; this was the first time that I had experienced failure. That year, I did not play on any sports teams; and while that year was sad and disappointing, I am glad that it happened...
“Slacker”
“He opened his heart to Christ present in those oppressed by poverty and injustice. May we follow his example of faith and generosity...” for years, I have heard, but not truly understood Edmund Rice’s prayer. Going to a Catholic school, I have been expected to serve those less fortunate than I; however, until last year, I simply saw this as 30 hours of meaningless chores...
Seven pairs of eyes bore into me, so that I felt simultaneously like a celebrity and an alien.I ducked under the red paper lanterns dangling over the doorway. “Xie xie,” I said too many times, eager to dispel whatever negative preconceptions the family might have about American teenagers. I was the waiguoren, the foreigner...
“…and that’s how a three-switch circuit works. Got it, Brian?”“Yeah, Grandpa, of course,” I said absentmindedly. Of course I wasn't listening, I don’t care about circuits. Why should I? Sherlock Holmes once said about the heliocentric model, “Now that I do know it, I shall do my best to forget it.” Anything extraterrestrial did not relate to his job of finding criminals. Circuits are part of electrical engineering, irrelevant to my psychiatric aspirations...
Screams came from my mother’s bedroom as I sat merrily on my bed singing along to music and finishing up the last few problems of my statistics homework. I dashed to her room as millions of thoughts enshrouded my mind as to what could have happened. With tears cascading down her face, she calmly explained to me that my father had got into a car accident and that he was unconscious...
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