At the beginning of last year, I remember sitting in math class, trying to answer a question my teacher asked. I knew what to say, but I couldn’t get the words out. My words kept on repeating and repeating. I couldn’t take a deep breath to start over again. Humiliated and embarrassed, I kept on […]
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Four years ago, and counting, I was a gymnast. I woke up at 5:00 am every morning to go to practice. We trained for three hours in the morning and four at night. I was committed, and in the best shape of my life, both mentally and physically. Being competitive, aggressive, and determined was required […]
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It all started with a strawberry pop-tart. I was sitting at home and my older sister, Larissa, came up to me. She simply asked, “Why are you eating that stuff?” “What?” I responded. “You know that stuff is full of chemicals and GMO’s, right?” “Chemicals and what?” I had no clue what a “GMO” was. […]
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When I was younger, my mother never allowed me near the television because she didn’t want me to see provocative commercials. I remember being fascinated by the racy commercials I saw on the television when I was older and my mother couldn’t completely shield me from the media. The scantily clad women that I saw […]
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Thousands of Ethiopians leave their home every year and many of them arrive in America. Like my family, they start their lives from scratch. My family’s story of global migration started a few years ago when my parents moved to the United States from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. An immigrant is a person who moves […]
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As a child, I was pretty chubby. According to the Body Mass Index (BMI, the measure of someone’s weight in relation to their height), if a child is over the 95th percentile for BMI, he or she is considered overweight. My BMI was always over 100th. Fortunately, my parents realized this tendency early on and […]
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