In late January 2011 a student of mine brought a loaded handgun into my sophomore world history class. I’m thankful every single day that he kept the weapon in his backpack and had no intention of using it at school. By all...
Greg’s father coached sports in the local schools. One summer day a group of us wanted a pickup baseball game and the guy who usually brought the bats and balls was not around. Greg said ‘I can get what we...
I'm rarely surprised to discover how my childhood classmates turned out on Facebook. Like, the geeky girl with the coke bottle glasses, who whittled wood during recess, is now into belly dancing. The sophisticated European...
When I was 8, I went to the mall, bought my first diary, came home, and wrote about “The Boy at the Mall.” We didn't talk, but we made eye contact, and it was as if time stopped and we entered another dimension, in...
I was approaching 8 and not having an easy time with getting older. It wasn't like a gradual fall from grace - when you wake up one day and say, hmmm, bthings are not like how they used to be or how I thought they...
"You cradle robber!" he said to my father. We were in Tulum, Mexico on a random vacation in the middle of my hair pulling, snot bubble, tear causing process of applying to college. Why? Don't you need to spend any...
Bootstrap, v. : To make use of existing resources or capabilities to raise (oneself) to a new situation or state; to modify or improve by making use of what is already present.
This is a story that was produced by Texas Folklife. It's a story about my Vietnamese mother and I living in Austin, TX. She helped create a Vietnamese community by renting apartments to large families. This drastically...
Try this experiment. Gather a group of the cutest, sweetest, silliest, most rambunctious toddlers and little kids you know, even add a couple of bad-asses, into a room, maybe a living room. Make them feel safe. Give them rules but let them play....
The summer after my sophomore year of high school, I turned 16. It was my golden birthday, since I was born on June 16th. I had been told this was supposed to be a very special day, a birthday to remember forever. And for most of the day, it was...
I hope nobody takes this as another one of those awful SPAM posts. I just wanted to share a link to this small but budding Story SLAM website, featuring stories told live by local (Ann Arbor, MI) entrepreneurs. Other story lovers like me might...
