.... One tends to forget that Cinderella emerged from a fairy tale. Disney has immortalized her and Madison Avenue has made a fortune off her image. She’s everywhere. Cinderella embodies all that America loves best. She’s young, she’s beautiful and she’s on the verge of realizing the American dream. Rags to riches, triumphant, what could be better? However, ominously, Cinderella, has a darker side. How do I tell Blair about Cinderella’s fatal flaws? For, despite, the picture perfect image, and despite the advancing years, Cinderella, is still as codependent as ever. In fact, the sin of Cinderella is her ongoing, untreated codependency. Where has C .....

.... we found a large pit which housed some bears. In this pit there was a cave where the bears could enter to get out of the rain and sun. A tree trunk used by the bears for climbing stood in the center of the pit. The bears were covered with long and stiff black hair and their bodies seemed fat and heavy. They walked to and fro and occasionally one would climb up the tree truck. The biggest attraction, however, seemed to center around the monkeys’ cage. The monkeys were continuously jumping and swinging about in their large cage. They looked very alert and stared back at the people. Some of them clung to the iron bars, waiting for someone to hand them a b .....

.... taxi cabs. I never understood why it is that each and every one of them have air freshners which are so putrid smelling, they make one long for the odor of a New York City cabbie's "natural cologne". After enduring ten minutes of the cabbie's "lemme tell ya what's wrong with this country", I finally get to my destination. As soon as I got there, I began to think about how sad it is that the mall has very much become a part of American life. The Chinese have their rice, we have our malls. Does anyone else see a problem with having over one-thousand of these gaudy monstrosities across the country? Despite the fact that the era of eighties-decadence has pass .....

.... my family, (who by the way, all moved back south), said I had everything going for me. I, on the other hand, did not feel that way. There were hundreds of reasons why I should have stayed, carried on, but it only took a few significant reasons to abandon my so called perfect life in Yuma, Arizona. I remember driving, looking out of the window at the mountains and clay colored rocks. I realized just how beautiful it all was. Again, my thoughts turned back to my life. The man I thought I would end up sharing my so-called perfect life with. I could see his face, remember his smile, hear him laugh. Jim and I were great friends for a long while. Almost a whol .....

.... alone in a crowded classroom of almost 50 students, tears were almost come out of my eyes but luckily I told myself that I had to learn how to speak English and to be part of an American. I always wanted to see the world and travel. In the winter of 1995, I decided to join the United States Navy. I remembered clearly in my mind the night was very cold and windy, I left my warmth and fill of loves family to go join the Navy. I arrived Great Lakes, Illinois where the training camp for all new sailors started their first step of becoming a member of the United States team. There I see many young men and women came from different ethnic background, and dif .....

.... Floating upward we reached a large cloud and I slowly watched in frozen fascination as the window of my parents bedroom opened and both in peaceful sleeps my mother and father levitated and floated out of the window. They landed on the cloud and feeling a slight chill tucked themselves into the fluff of the cloud. Then hearing a creaking sound on my left I turned and watched as my sisters window began to open. She then levitated and floated onto the cloud as well, she sunk into the cloud and continued her dream. I whispered, “sweet dreams” to my family and continued to fly. This was my night to share with my mind body and soul. I kept my cat Felix with me th .....

.... But they weren't your butt slapping punishments like all the other kids got. They were kids locked away in basements for the rats to eat, getting sold on the street to dirty men, things to the degree only the grotesque mind could imagine such a horror. But when Wolfgang was really menacing or his dad was drunk he would tell the story of the kid in the closet. The kid in the closet story scared Wolfgang so much he wouldn't dare get near one. The night had fallen and the dealers came out just after dusk, so Wolfgang moved his toys from the corner and walked up the apartment stairs. As his little twelve year old legs climbed the steps, he had to pass t .....

.... a stroll through the meadow is like walking through a rainbow. The shades of the velvety ornamented flower petals vary from scarlet, to baby blue. Despite the similarities in color, nothing else seems to be the same- they all tower 2 or 3 feet above the dark, rich soil. They sway playfully in unison with the warm caressing breeze, carefully merging the two scents into one fresh, clean fragrance. You pry yourself away from the immense meadow, still filled with many unexplored treasures and turn back into the foliage covered depths of the forest. The sun is comfortably placed in front of the cotton candy clouds, in the midst of the soft blue sky. The occasio .....