.... performance. This was one of the turning points in my life. When I found out that I helped raised half of the amount of money earn for donation for the less fortunate people, I was truly ecstatic. It is a great feeling to know you contributed in helping the community. My cultural experiences in life taught me many of the great lessons in life. My Thai culture influenced me to become who I am. I believe that in order for a person to clearly understand their own culture, they have to go research and experience it themselves. Playing Thai traditional instrument manifests one of my researches. I learned to cooperate, function and focus with other people. .....

.... From them came the workings of magic, refined enough for everyday use. Life was good in those days. Then, without warning, a strange army riding under a red banner swept down on the town. Tamia held out for almost two years, but eventually the King laid aside his scepter, the staff of Niord, and surrendered to the new power: Kaid. Imperial Kaid, at that time, was an emerging culture from the sandy banks of the River Namm. Because Kaid lies in a veritable desert wasteland, the Kaidites were protected from enemy attack, until one day they burst forth in a conquering fury, and none in their path could withstand them. The Kaidites brought with them thei .....

.... my companions. I take a book with me when I travel so if I know no person at my destination I always have a friend with whom old times are shareable. Family without friends never provided me with enough company. Taking a walk with the dark elf Drizzt through the shadowed halls of his city Menzobaeren inspired confidence in me even in the solitude of a Hawaiian vacation. Calling reading just a hobby then does it injustice. Adventure fits it more appropriately. Books sweep me into the depths of imagination and let me share another persons dream while helping me see mine. Piers Anthony taking me through his spellbinding Juxtaposition opened my mind an .....

.... and paced off to the staff room. "I'll bowl ya!" he heard the irate dishwasher yell, but the dishwasher always yelled that, and Derek had long since ceased to notice: he was already reaching for his cigarette pack. With quick, practiced movements he withdrew one of the long tubes from the cardboard package. With one hand he placed it in a precise position in his lips while the other hand was occupied with first replacing the package to his shirt pocket, then digging out a half used pack of matches from his too tight jeans. He was extremely conscious of the fluidity of his movements; lighting the cigarette with the match was the hard part, .....

.... mind wanders in a tangle of bittersweet memories, my eyes fail to see the here and now focusing instead on the memories of a lifetime. The sweltering heat presses upon all of us in the car as a great torrent of rain hammers upon the vehicle, drowning out all other sound. You can no longer hear the sound of the engine, the heartbeat of the metal steed that has carried us this far and will carry us many more miles. The beat of the music is no longer distinguishable as beats out it's own tune on the glass of the windows and the metal of the car. Visibility is reduced to almost the end of our noses as the water sluices down the windows. Moving the car ever so cau .....

.... one winter vacation, where my cousin can to visit. He knew a bit of how to program, and taught me everything he knew. I immediately became an addict to the new world of errorlevels, internal and external commands etc. The first programs I made were simple and useless. For example a sequence which generates random circles, at random places, in random colors on the screen. Or a program which asks you how old you are, and how many cigarettes you smoke everyday. Then it tells you if you smoke too much. These programs are not useful because they don't satisfy any of the two demands: 1) It doesn't fulfill any of my needs. 2)It's not suitable for a wider audience. .....

.... it in his garage for the wood stove. Their house is always hotter than a cannon, as my dad would say in the winter , because of that stove. Also in the winter time he shovels his walkway and snow blows his driveway; he just got a new snow blower this year too. He is still very strong. As he would be because he used to run his farm. The farmhouse is still there but just a little bit broken down. Now he just lets a guy use his field for his cows to graze in. The fences still have electricity running in them and the barn has a lot of things in it. My grandfather has collected a lot of stuff over the years. He also has a very old snowmobile in there and .....

.... the boy continued his flight for safety. But no matter how far he ran, how hard he tried, the thing, the hunter was always only a few paces behind, pursuing relentlessly. The boy's clothes was torn and bloody, hanging in strips from his bruised body. Shurbs with thorny stems and low hanging branches slowed his escape, cutting him and barring his way. Making him more desperate, adding to his weariness. His lungs were burning, he was out of breath, the boy wanted to give up, his legs however denied him. They continued moving and running. His body was fatigued, his head ached, his muscles throbbed. Pain, his body cried out Pain, stop! He could not stop. .....