Your+Life+1995-2008

One of the worst years of my life so far was when my father was gone for a year overseas, fighting in Iraq. Every night, I'd wake up, thinking, "is he OK?" He was gone for a total of 16 months, and those 16 months seemed like 3 or 4 years to me. I would get a letter from my father almost every week. It was horrible, not knowing where he was, what he is doing, or if he's safe or not. I cried myself to sleep almost every single night the whole time he was gone. I missed my father so much.
 * Jose M. **

He survived 2 IED explosions, and an RPG ambush. One of the IED blasts tore the Humvee in half, along with my dad's friend Chris. He saw his friend get killed, and then he almost got killed himself. A large chunk of metal landed right next to my father, and he lost consciousness for about 3 hours. He escaped with nary a scratch. The other IED, he wasn't so lucky. A piece of metal barely missed him, but the force from the explosion made the Humvee jump 2 or 3 times, averaging about 7 feet each jump. These jumps put crushing pressure on my father's back, and has him injured for the rest of his life. He has some misplaced discs, and some smashed discs in his back. But, that was the worst thing that happened to him.

I went to therapy for this. I also went to group therapy with children who were experiencing the same thing. He is very lucky, but also very smart in dangerous situations. During the RPG ambush, an RPG actually bounced off the hood of the Humvee. It exploded about 6 feet to the left, and killed the driver. My dad jumped out of the Humvee while the gunner was firing, and threw a grenade at the insurgents, and ended up winning the firefight. Every day, he thanks god that he gets to see his 2 boys grow up. And now, I see him every weekend. I'm so glad he made it through that very grueling experience.

** Kyle J. media type="file" key="KyleDigitalstoryslideshow.wmv" width="300" height="300" Jason B.**

**Joe O.** media type="file" key="Digital story template.mp3" width="240" height="20"

**Jamie W.** media type="file" key="digital story jamie w..mp3" width="240" height="20"

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 * Sara B.

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Corey W. media type="file" key="CoreyDigital.mp3" width="240" height="20" ** media type="file" key="Digital Story AlexN..mp3" width="240" height="20"
 * Alex N.**

**Kayla F. media type="file" key="Kayla's Story.mp3" width="240" height="20"

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**Antoinette H.** media type="file" key="antoinettedigi.mp3" width="240" height="20"

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 * Ashley O.**

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**Samantha McGuire****:** **A Cat Named Cuddles** media type="file" key="Untitled 035.mp3" width="240" height="20"

Adam H
My name is Adam H. and I was born November 3, 1995. I do not remember much about my life. I only remember my 4th birthday, 7th birthday, my 12, and my 13th birthday. At my 4th birthday I got a little packer uniform. At my 7th birthday I got a coat and it was red,and red is my favorite color. I went to my first packer game for my 12 birthday. On my 13th birthday I got some money, a gift card for game stop, and a watch, that was gold and silver. I like to watch the packer games even if the loose. I love to go to the packer games also. I went to the Packer game the other day to see the Green bay Packer beat the Bengal’s. But the Packer lost the game. They could have won the game but the Packer had a false start, if they hadn't had the false start we may have won the game. The Packers could have won 32 to 31 but the Packers lost 31 to 24. I was really mad at the Packers after the game because the Packers should have won that game. The Packers record is now 1-1-0 and the Bengal’s are 1-1-0 like the Packers. If the Packer loose the game vs the Rams my Uncle Scott will not going to the game vs the Cowboys. The good thing is that I will get to go to the game for him. I would go to the game with my Uncle Walt, my grandma, and my Mom. But I bet the Packers will beat the Rams because the Rams have a bad defense and a bad Offense.Adam H

Cassie G.
My name is Cassie G. I've never had anything really bad happen to me until last year. I've had bad dreams but that's it. I was almost 13. I was going to be turning 13 in 2 weeks. The night of 2008 Harley Fest was when this burglar tried to come into the house through my window when I was sleeping. On August 29th our house was about to be robbed but I unfortunately stopped them. My family and I were coming back from downtown. We were checking out all the motorcycles. Before we left to go downtown I left my window open on the north side of the house. Well back to that night. We were coming home it was about midnight and I was extremely tired. So we finally get home and I saw that my window was open but I didn't care I was tired. It was like 80F outside so my room was hot. I decided to go to bed with the window open to keep my room somewhat cool. So I went to sleep. I slightly woke up and I thought I saw someone run out of my room and out the window. So I look at my window and there's a hand in my window! I didn't know what to do. So I went under the covers for a slight second when I realized I don't want this person coming back in so I lift the covers off my head and look to see if he was gone.

Well I slightly look at the window. The guy hasn't left. I can see him. He is on the side of the window. I can see his reflection on the other house. Plus his hand keeps slipping. So you guys are probably wondering why haven't I screamed yet well no one prepared for this. Plus what if I did scream. I am so close to the window that he could just pull me out the window and hurt me. I didn't want that to happen. So what do I do to get this guy gone? Well I tell him I can see him. I tell him to go away. I tell him there's nothing for him here to just go away. I tell him that like 10 times and he finally runs off towards the alley. I made sure he was gone and I ran up stairs to tell my parents what just happened. I wake them up and I am crying. I tell them someone was trying to get into the house threw my window. There like WHAT! I told them again that someone tried to break into the house threw my window. By then my dad was up and already downstairs investigating. My mom said are you sure and I was YES! She said this because I have minor seizures, which makes me go delusional. So I said mom go downstairs and look at the window. Before we went downstairs, she called the police. My mom told them the address and the police were on there way. We go downstairs and we turn on my light and we see the window, the screen has been torn. My dad comes in and I tell them the whole story. About 3 min. later the police arrive. I tell them what happened. They ask all these questions even though we never found the guy. It was almost 5 in the morning when this all happened. That was the scariest thing I have ever gone through. I hope I never have to go through it again. I hope I never have to go through even something that extreme again. edited by Adam H

**Olivia C.**

 My mom. She is the most important person in my life. I don't know what I would do without her. She is definitely my hero and one of my biggest inspirations. She has been through a whole lot but always refused to give up, and is still like that to this day. She can always find the positive in the negative. She is amazing to me, because even in the toughest of situations she looks at it in a different perspective and turns the whole situation around. Another very important thing she has taught me is, that absolutely everything happens for a reason. Even if it's something bad, there's always a reason behind it. I'm so glad she taught me that because that one sentence helps me through just about everything.

She is such a strong and faithful person. She is by far, the most thoughtful and compassionate person that I know. She always tells me to be grateful for the little things in life. I think we all take the people and things in our life for granted and sometimes we don't even realize it. I'll admit it, sometimes I do take things in life for granted. But she taught me to not do that anymore. So I've really gotten better at that. Another thing she always tells me, is that nobody is guaranteed tomorrow, so live today like it's your last. It means a lot to me because I know that it's true.

I can tell my mom pretty much everything, and I know I could trust her. We have good communication with each other. Sure, we argue and get mad at each other sometimes, but it's bound to happen. We're only human. I always end up feeling bad in the end anyway because I know that she's only looking out for me, and doing what's best for me. She always goes above and beyond to make everybody else happy. She is the type of person to put everyone before her self. She is truly one of a kind.

The Shadow Man
My experience was in July 2008. I still don't really know what to make of it. I have my own ideas, but to avoid influencing anybody's comments, I won't say them here. A little background information about myself is that, I have never experienced ghosts, aliens, angels, or anything like this prior to this event, although I do believe that they exist.

I had woken up between 3-4 in the morning, and after few seconds, I had felt the sensation of something gripping my heart and squeezing it to the point that it was painful. For me to admit pain, actual pain, with what I've gone through in terms of getting hurt playing sports, meanig that it was really something horrible. Also, I don't wake up at those hours of the morning without any reason, a dream, having to go to the bathroom, something along those lines. When I woke up, there was no immediate cause that I can remember that had forced me to wake up... All I remember was waking up.

In the corner of my room, there was a black shadow, whom looked to be human, but somehow didn't really have a shape. I never did look directly at it, but only looked at it from the corner of my eye, which is unusual because I ALWAYS look at unusual objects/things. I do remember it seeming to reach out toward me at one point. All I did was curl up into a ball and started praying.

A minute or 2 after I started praying, I felt the pressure in my chest release, and with it came a profound calmness I've never had before, and I've managed to maintain a piece of that calmness ever since. My house is not haunted, nobody has ever died in it, and there's no ancient Indian Graveyard underneath it, so I have no explanation for what happened that night.

Typed and revised by: Anna Kewin Written by: Anonymous Link: []

Past technology.
Today is so much different them my childhood. Back when I was around your age, we never had as much technology as you guys do. You guys have so much electronics, I can't even keep track. You guys have everything easy. You don't have to bring books home from school, it's all done on a computer. I have to say that is pretty cool. I remember my back used to hurt all the time carrying those heave books back and forth to school. It wasn't that fun. We had technology, Just nothing close to what you have today. Are most popular technology thing would probably be the Ipod Touch. I think every child in my neighbor hood had one. If you didn't have one, no one made fun of you, you just didn't have one. The Ipod had many cool things on it. I would say if I could buy one today I would, just to have a good memory back. The only thing is, it's probably not updated to out days. I remember when my friend had an Ipod touch, and somebody broke the screen, and it was jail broke. Jail broke is when you break your Ipod, and then you can have as many apps on it as you want. Normally you can only have about 2 pages of apps, My friend like 10 pages. That's only because he jail broke it. Though it was pretty cool that you could do that, but once you hook it up to the computer it sometimes would delete some of your apps. I really like how you guys have any different choices of technology, only cause we didn't have as many choices. Also your technology is more usable and secure. They make your things less breakable, and easier to handle. That's a good thing. I hope you can tell your children about yours and mines technology, so they can see how the world changes, just by have different technology.

By: Amber O.