I’m exceptionally good at focusing on insignificant things in life, like the shoes I wear. I have that pair of shoes I had to buy for Winter Ball freshman year, with the one-inch heel, because I absolutely could not be taller than my date. I have four-year-old cheerleading sneakers that have been through endless practices […]

She prefers to wake up to clouds, with heavy rainslamming against her windows, and the sky forbidding any light to cascade throughthe blinds. The sound and the smell coming through the open windows give her asense of life. Although sleep still drips from her eyes, the girl feels moreawake than ever. When she sleeps, she […]

To Whom It May Concern: Writing a letter of special circumstance is a bittersweet experience for me. On the one side, it’s a wonderful opportunity to explain why my grade point average isn’t where it should be. However, on the other, I feel as if I should just deal with the events and not try […]

Color is generally defined as the visual reflection of light off an object. For a maximum understanding of my essay, however, try to think about color as rather a feeling or a state of being. When a person is sad, we say he feels blue. The first color to come to thought with anger is […]

Most nine-year-olds in Round Lake, Illinois spend their summers outdoors jumping rope or swimming in the lake. I spent my fourth grade summer in my kitchen, teaching my then 68-year-old grandmother the alphabet. My grandma, Mama Pava, grew up in a small Mexican village. She came from a very poor family. Her mother died when […]

“I didn’t even foul him!” “It’s hard to tell sometimes.” “No, it’s not! That ref just sucked!” I sat alone in the second row of our minivan, shivering slightly in my basketball singlet and shorts. I should have worn a jacket to combat the January chill, but being a stubborn 10-year-old, I had insisted that […]

She quietly hobbled into the clinic when her number was called, clearly in excruciating pain. When asked what was troubling her, she lifted her left leg to reveal the sole of her foot. The entire medical team froze in shock. A cut on her left foot had become so infected that we could almost see […]

My family has always been religious and involved in our church. When I was younger, my parents helped the priest give the host, my sister was an altar server, and my grandmother arranged bake sales. This was about the time that my mother, to my great distress, felt I needed to become involved too. I […]

The room was a frenzy of twirling tutus. Adrenaline filled the air, sparking the tiny ballerinas into frantic leaps that ended with them splattered against the mirror like Silly Putty. Parents rummaged around for ballet slippers, hair ties and dance bags scattered amidst the chaos. Their last class of the year was over, the recital […]

“Hello Bella!” said Levi as he lifted his hand up to give me an enthusiastic high five.”Hey Levi!” I said. I moved into my assigned classroom, stunned and delighted.On any other day, in any other situation, this friendly exchange might seem pretty unremarkable.But, you see, Levi is a seventeen-year-old autistic boy with extremely limited verbal […]