Stories I Could Tell

Go to "Stories I Could Tell" Homework.

Ms. Spachman

1.       Getting my wallet stolen.  I had only a couple weeks left before graduation.  My classes were going well and my plans for the summer were getting set.  Then someone stole my wallet, my keys, my passport, and my checkbook, and in the midst of my desperation to find out when and where it all happened, someone else stole my $50 Shakespeare book.  [CENTRAL CONFLICT:  person v. society]

2.       Flying over the Andes one night during my South America term in college.  My friend Kate hated flying and was nervous the whole time.  I had agreed to sit with her, thinking we’d be fine, but then the plane hit some serious turbulence.  Everyone in the plane was sure we’d crash and end up like the rugby players who crashed in the Andes years ago and had to resort to cannibalism to survive.  [CENTRAL CONFLICT:  person v. nature]

3.       Babysitting Maureen.  One of the nights I watched my neighbors’ daughter Maureen she was really getting on my nerves.  She refused to cooperate about going to bed, and then she made matters worse by trying to let her dog outside.  She ended up shutting the heavy patio door right on his tail.  [CENTRAL CONFLICT:  person v. person]

4.       Eating snake soup in Taiwan.  My friend John was determined to eat as much weird food on our trip to Taiwan as possible.  So one night, Kurt, our Taiwanese friend, took all of us to Snake Alley where Kurt and John ordered a Snake Sampler which included three shots of various snake bodily fluids and a bowl of steaming soup with a snake coiled in it.  The meat was tough yet flaky and did not taste like chicken.  [CENTRAL CONFLICT: _________________________]

5.       Performing Shakespeare for the first time in front of my performance class at the University of Chicago.  My whole life I had been battling stage fright, a condition that would make me tremble and lose my breath whenever I had to speak or perform in front of a group of people.  I had memorized my lines, but I still wasn’t sure about my interpretation of the scene.  I couldn’t get over the fact that I would have to go up alone in front of thirty strangers who all knew more about acting than me.  [CENTRAL CONFLICT:  ____________________ ______________]

6.       Falling off my bike when I was nine.  My parents had gone out of town and I was spending the weekend at my friend Jenny’s house down the street.  We were chasing each other up and down the block when I wiped out on my driveway.  Gravel and dust bit into a whole side of my leg and I had to stumble back to Jenny’s house with blood oozing down to my ankle.  [CENTRAL CONFLICT: __________________________]

7.       Discovering the break-in at my house.  It was a couple days before spring break, and I was looking forward to a relaxing week of no work or stress.  Then late one night, I found the backdoor to my house standing open.  At first I was annoyed, thinking my tenant had closed it improperly, but then I discovered someone had pried the door open and broken the deadlock.  An intruder had been inside and my tenant was no where to be found.  [CENTRAL CONFLICT:  _______________________________]

8.       Riding my first rollercoaster.  I was ten years old, and although I had been to Great America before, I had never been on a rollercoaster.  My friend Jenny and her parents finally convinced me that I should go on one:  The Shockwave.  It looked like a simple enough ride: just one really fast trip forward and around a loop, and then shooting backwards, back around the loop and up an almost vertical track on the other side.  I was so nervous getting on, especially since the ride broke down right before I got on.  I thought for sure I was going to die.  [CENTRAL CONFLICT: _____________________________]

9.       My first car accident.  I had only been driving for a few weeks when my parents allowed me to take the car out alone one night to go see a play at school.  After the play, I was leaving the parking lot when a friend of mine saw me, waved, and then got into his own car to chase me.  He pulled up beside me on just a two-lane street, swerved, and hit my front end.  Two seconds later, police lights started glaring behind me and we both got pulled over.  [CENTRAL CONFLICT: ___________________________]