Top Voted Personal Experience Articles

The sky was pitch black, the house was creaking, and I still had four hours until my parents got home. Locked in my parents’ room, I turned on the TV full blast so I wouldn’t hear the creaking house. I barely heard the phone ring. I picked... (more »)

As a child in Cambodia, life was difficult. It went from bad to worse when my mother got sick. As usual, my father left us and went someplace else. I hardly ever saw him. I loved my ­father and maybe I still do. He wasn’t a nice man, though. He... (more »)

I will be the first to say that I am not materialistic. My friends label me as a goody-goody; my parents say I am conservative and modest when it comes to clothes. I don’t wear bikinis, and none of my skirts or shorts end above my knees. That is... (more »)

It was the end of my junior year, the weekend before prom. I was riding around that night with some friends, and a bottle got passed around the car. Everyone was taking swigs. Then the bottle got to me. With it in my hand I thought, What will I... (more »)

We sat around a wobbly, cast-iron table outside Starbucks around 9:30 one night the summer that I was 14. Emma, Karen, Cathy, and I had just been to a movie we had since decided was a waste of $4.50 and two hours of our lives. Cathy was... (more »)

Football, red meat, power tools. Football, red meat, power tools. These three things played over and over in my head. Three manly things that kept me from thinking about … “WE DID NOT WATCH ‘THE NOTEBOOK’!” You could hear Key from... (more »)

It was the November of second grade, and strep throat had been spreading like the plague through my class. Two girls and I were absent toward the end of the outbreak, experiencing scarlet-striped throats and aching bones. We missed an entire week... (more »)

In summer day care, outside had always been my favorite place. Going out was a prelude to another epic adventure. As a tomboy, I stuck with the boys who made up games in which we were all characters with names, personalities, and skills way beyond... (more »)

      The first time I dressed up as a woman was Halloween. Innocent enough, I suppose - costumes and whatnot. Some people dressed as ogres, the traditional witch, and, as always, multiple poorly imitated Frankensteins. I... (more »)

“One … two … three … NOW!” I bite down on the Altoid and a blast of ice invades my mouth and my head, the cold clearing all nervousness. The golden afternoon sun falls in sheets through the browning pine needles,... (more »)