.... my uncle was celebrating Alex's victory. I called my close friend Joe up and got him to come along with me. I was living in Atlanta at that time. My uncle lived on a farm in Winder, a small town fifty miles north of Atlanta. It was a nice and breezy day to be driving in the countryside. The sun was bright and traffic was light, we blasted the radio on and enjoyed the scenery. Winder is a pretty small town. It has two stoplights and a little strip mall, which is considered to be their downtown area. My uncle lives further out in the countryside but in order for us to get to his house, we had to go through town. We had just passed the city limit s .....

.... to force me into never misbehaving or doing anything “wrong.” I know some of these things are examples of good parenting, but there is a fine line between teaching and guiding a child to do the right things, and forcing them to do the right things. Some of the things they did I’m still a bit grateful for, and I understand their reasoning, things like enrolling me in activities. I found out what I liked and was good at a young age, which was good, but the bad side was that I was never able to change once I started, and being so young and fickle, that discouraged me from liking things that I could have later on. The pressure to be perfect in every way has .....

.... Ontario's summer morning treasures. These were numerous and shamefully underrated by my dormant faculties, so rudely aroused before their time. But here was nature, determined to be wonderful with or without my participation, and somehow at some subconscious level, stored for future reference, I seem to have imbibed her subtle stimuli. Along the eastern shores of the night-sky a splash of colour would emerge. The all-night cricket band would reluctantly wane under the first gentle reveille from those "early-birds" of epigram fame. And then would come the most striking sensation of all: the smell of fresh dew on the grass - I think the terms "exhilarating .....

.... to the best of my ability, I will feel like I have accomplished something. This is good because many kids have to live up to expectations that they can't attain, or do something that they don't really enjoy in order to make their parents proud. The problem with saying "as long as you do you best" is that when I know I could have done a better job, I have a sort of guilty feeling. I hate it when I get a mediocre mark or fail in something and my parents say "as long as you tried your hardest." It gets quite annoying when I second guess myself about what I could have done. However, when I know I did the work as well as I could and it isn't a good mark, I don .....

.... and he would never give up even if there was no way he could win. To this very day he still has an annual football game against a childhood friend, Bono, who is a prize winning, full grown bull. (In case the reader hasn't discovered it, after every game, Sam has a visit to the hospital where he is an infamous character, continually joked about by the nurses and doctors who work there.) *** "You may see Mr. Monty now, sir," the secretary informed Sam. He nervously eyed the door in front of him. The big, bold lettering stated: MR. JP MONTY EX .....

.... job. My job title progressed from a cashier up to a phone operator, then to a credit card representative, and finally, to a vault person. I learned how to handle my money with responsibility and accuracy. In addition, I acquired great phone communicational skills and gained confidence in my voice and my actions. By being a credit card representative, I found out how to process an application and deliver the response to a customer within three minutes. Working in the safe was one of the most accountable and trustful positions in the warehouse. I mastered how to operate the safe machine, count and balance the drops (money bags coming from the register .....

.... packed with nothing but broken branches and seeds. It was obvious what used to be inside. I looked toward the door and saw the towel that plugged it so no smoke would get out in the hall. On the dresser I saw what I think they called a steam roller. The most horrid device that I had ever used. I looked at the cylindrical tube, that once used to be a transparent red but now had become a solid maroon from all the smoke which stained the plastic, and noticed its simplicity. It looks like nothing more than a plastic pipe that was only about one and a half inches in diameter and only about six inches long. The bowl which rested on top could have been easily assemble .....

.... and we made our way towards the kindergarten. As we came closer we could make out the kindergarten on the horizon. The fluorescent yellow play equipment stood out in the green landscape as if it didn't belong. We had finally arrived, I got out and made my way to the door. All the peaceful sounds of the wind blowing through the towering trees and the birds chirping happily with one another all came to a sudden halt as I opened the door. The children ran around, screamed, and threw things as if they were unaware of the peacefulness that lay outside. I made my way closer to the children. There appeared to be hundreds of little kids looking up at me with m .....