.... Nine. Well, doctor, it involves our apartment. Oh, a very nice one, near the University, view of the river and all that. We got it about ten years ago, and we never saw any reason to move. Since we decided never to have kids, I guess we never needed anything larger -- not that it's small, of course. A condominium. Well, I teach literature at McGill. And I went on an academic exchange to Germany. Hamburg. It's an ugly city, but we enjoyed it anyway. Yes, teaching. I got Arnaud to travel around Germany a bit, and we came back through France. No, I wish I had learnt it, but since I taught my students in French it didn't matter too ....

.... notice all colors of the spectrum for a fraction of a second, then they appear red. Countless pictures adorn the walls; they are all of one person. I know her, but who is she? Her eyes are dark and enigmatic. I can see the sadness in her eyes. Her eyes. They lack the luminescence of the youthful character they portray. Her glances pierce through my being like light through glass. The carpet is a sea of scorn. It stabs my feet with its blades of contempt. The walls of mockery laugh at me as I foolishly try to climb them to rid myself of its presence. Yet there is no escape. I have inflicted more pain upon myself. Nothing is soft in here; everything is jagged ....

.... not the type that showed love nor was he the macho type that people stereo-type Hispanic men to be. He was the quiet, reserved type. I remember the day we found out he had lung cancer. It was hard for the family to except. It was especially hard for my mother. I was only sixteen years old I did not quite understand what was going on with my father’s health. I saw my father go from a well-built six foot two inch construction worker to a skinny very sick man. My mother pulled me aside one day about a week after we all found out he was terminally ill and explained to me what was going to happen. The next day I went to go see him at the hospital. The minute I saw him I ....

.... eat lunch at her house every week. I remember trudging up the dank, squeaky stairs with my siblings, yelling "An-yang!!"(grandmother) all the way. She would yell in a similar fashion "Ah! Shua- nging!" (ah, children!) Smells of old- fashioned Shanghainese cooking would assail my senses, as my mouth watered in anticipation of the savories to come. One particular afternoon, after we had finished eating, we draped ourselves around her living room. I was sitting on a dilapidated couch, whose colors were made indiscernible by time, and was looking around her room. My gaze swept from the thin, worn carpet, bare in some places, to the scarred wooden dresser, to a dirty doll ....

.... tears, which I had never seen him do before. He explained that his gun had exploded and an iron piece from it pierced the young man's heart, killing him instantly. Because of this, Okonkwo had to spend seven years away from Umuofia. I felt tremendously sorry for Ezeudu's now deceased son, but I felt even more sorry for Okonkwo, who had killed him unintentionally. That night I went over to his compound along with some other friend's, and we tried to calm him down, but it was no use, I had never seen him this upset before. We then helped him pack his yams, and stored them in my barn. I was to sell these yams while Okonkwo served his exile. When we finished, he and his famil ....

.... lights of the city somehow always devour. There was no path beyond the lookout. As we stumbled through the trees, we held our backpacks in the front of us so the needle written branches of the pine trees didn't smack us in the face. After a few grueling minutes the trees thinned out to expose the edge of a 100-foot drop off. I could see to the other side of the river. We've decided to lay our sleeping bags down on the edge of the cliff, it seemed to be the most level surface and the best view. As we looked up we could see the stars, thousands and thousands of them. The distinctive Milky Way right over had looked like a highway of stars stuck in rush-hour I sh ....

.... did it in my head..." Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me... Or thinks I'm a smart ass... Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here... Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike. And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I ....

.... one is asked to do as an employee of a grocery store are unimaginable. I think that being employed, especially to a grocery store, is not a good idea for teenagers because there are usually unintelligent people running them, it infringes on teenage lives, and some aspects of most jobs are disgusting. Bosses are probably the most difficult part of being employed to me. At the grocery store that I worked at for a short period of time, I remember being constantly pulled aside and being told that I wasn’t bagging the groceries properly. The strange part was that when my boss would tell me these things he would always take me to isle seven to yell and scream at me. Why could ....