Defining Moments
March 1, 2005
Who I Am
I feel like so much of my life has been made up of defining moments. Each moment brought a lesson that taught me more about who I am or what I want to be like. Read more.
He Had Me From LOL
He Had Me From LOL
It was a drizzly, gray day, which didn't help my growing sense of dread. Perhaps sunshine would have helped dry up the puddles of despair that were overwhelming me. I was one week away from beginning my second year of teaching high school English after a first year that had left me battered and broken. The thought of continuing down that hazardous career path was unthinkable, but what else could I do? I asked myself that question innumerable times. I had debt coming out my ears and I needed to work. I had a job. I couldn't quit. I felt trapped. I'd spent four long years working on my degree. How could I give it all up? How could I face all those people who told me I would hate teaching? Read more.
Talking the Talk
The biggest challenge facing many people who move to a foreign country is learning a new language. I've been fairly lucky in that respect since my interest in languages led me to start learning Swedish on my own as soon as I developed an interest in a Swedish guy. In addition, I've always had a bit of a knack for picking up languages, so by the time I moved to Sweden four years ago, I could read the language well enough to get myself around Stockholm with little trouble (aside from my terrible sense of direction, that is), and even to get the gist of short newspaper articles. Once I was actually here, my language development moved even more quickly and after less than a year I could converse reasonably well--if fairly superficially--about most subjects. Read more.
About Face
by Sarah Artis
In August 2001, my older sister, Emma, and her husband of three months were arrested for possession with the intent to traffic drugs. They were parked at a gas station in Whiterock, Canada, a few kilometers from the U.S. border with ten pounds of marijuana stuffed into the spare tire of their Ford pick-up--enough dope to fill a garbage bag. Flaps of heroin for personal use were hidden in their pockets. My sister describes the ordeal with disbelief. Read more.
Little Wonder
by J. B. Chow
I was crouched down on my haunches so I could be at eye level with him, him being my Buddha-bellied little four-and-a-half-month-old nephew. He was strapped into the infant carrier waiting patiently by the side of the car for his mom, who was setting the house alarm, to buckle him into the child car seat. Read more.
Define Me in the Moment
Looking at my short twenty-six years on this earth, the outside observer would undoubtedly pick the huge catastrophic life events as my defining moments. Read more.