¶ … childhood, personal and academic experiences, and future goals. I describe my childhood and family, my current living situation, my personal and academic experiences and conclude with my views on the experience of writing an autobiography. Description

I am a 28-year-old female, born the middle child to my mother and father. I have an older brother who is 30 years old as well as a younger sister, born 6 years after me, who is now 22. I grew up with my siblings and both of my parents, my mother and my father. My family was regular, both of my parents shared equally in disciplining me and my siblings. My father was the most dominant figure in the household, although really both of my parents played a very significant role in raising my siblings and myself. In truth, they would fluctuate between who was more dominant based on the specific issue. For example, when we were teenagers my father was more dominant in setting out specific consequences for us, but my mother was always more dominant when it came to ensuring that we completed our school work and behaved kindly to one another.

As a family, we lived in an suburban area in a house that had a yard where we could always play with the family pet, although more often than not I think that the general care for our pets was taken up by my mother. It was a nice house where we always had friends and family stopping by to visit. Some of the most important and significant people in my life were my grandparents. I always enjoyed my grandparents visits, they brought presents and had great stories to tell of their recent travels and adventures.

My siblings and I were also very close with our neighbors. Our neighbors on one side had two sets of identical twin boys! They were always playing tricks on my sister and I, as we could hardly ever tell any of them apart -- even though two of them were older than the other two. We would play soccer against them and my brother was always building forts with them that they then would not allow us girls into, although we would sneak into them when they were off doing something else. Other than the two sets of twins, I would also often have friends over from school, but other than that I do not remember any significant friendships during childhood. My more significant friendships were made during high school and the years following, and I now enjoy a small but close-knit group of friends who enjoy each other's company and are always able to understand the needs of the other. It is nice and comforting to know that one has good friends.

Personal Experiences

I have always been closest to my mother and my sister, especially my sister. At present, I live with my sister, my mother and my two daughters. We are a household of fearless women who are always there for each other. Of course, we can fight like anyone else, but we always make up and it is comforting to know that I have these wonderful women in my life who will always be there for me. Although I am closer to my sister, I also get along very well with my older brother. My parents are divorced, so I do not get along as well with my father, but as a child, I got along well with both of my parents.

As kids, my siblings and I enjoyed playing all sorts of different games. We played against each other in video games, played soccer in the back yard, and also enjoyed playing old fashioned board games on the weekends. We especially liked to play board games when my grandparents would visit.

When I was a teenager I suffered from bulimia and required treatment to learn how to better care for myself and manage my life stresses and learned to eat healthy. Another habit that I had as a kid was sucking on my fingers, something that I have done since as early as I can remember. I'm not really sure when this began, or why.

Academic / Intellectual Experiences

I do not remember my first day of school, but one of the most memorable days of school for me was a day when I witnessed a kid being taunted on the school playground. I did not know who this young boy was, but he was being picked on by...

At least 10 kids were physically attacking this boy and yelling names at him. I do not know what this boy could have possibly done to elicit such a response from so many kids. Bullying is not exactly rare, but the reason this day sticks out for me so much is because I always wondered why this was happening to the boy and why no one helped the boy. I even questioned why I did not help and I think I felt very guilty at the time, even though in hindsight there really was not much that I could have done to intervene, especially given that the group of kids was older than I was at the time. I suppose the day made me feel guilty, sad, and confused and I think it was mostly as a result of not really understanding the situation and wondering why people could be so cruel to each other. I'm not sure how much time I devoted to experiencing these feelings or considering them, although the experience has come back to me many times recently while hearing the stories about bullying on the news.
In school, I got along fairly well with most of my peers. I was neither the super popular kid nor the outcast. I was an average student and my favorite classes were mostly science related, especially biology. I did not participate in very man extra curricular activities, although I did enjoy hanging out with my friends after school. I graduated high school with honors, but was not immediately certain what I wanted to do following graduation. Consequently, I took some time to decide what I wanted to do next and found employment after graduation.

Experiences Related to Physical Development

On the whole, I would describe myself as being very open-minded, agreeable, conscientious and extroverted. Although I can sometimes be quite anxious, and have struggled my whole life with eating disorders and body image issues, on the whole I find myself to be a happy individual who generally goes with the flow and can often be seen as the one to compromise when there is conflict. I think that I have a number of positive qualities. I am a very honest individual, I am generous with my friends and family, I can be very creative, and I am ambitious. These positive qualities do not come without some negatives as well. I can at times be stubborn, despite my overall tendency to compromise. Yet, if something is very important to me I can be stubborn, even if I am perhaps not seeing the whole picture. I can also be quite impulsive and sometimes make decisions before thoroughly thinking them through.

One thing that I would like to change about myself is how hard I can be on myself. While I give nearly everyone around me the benefit of the doubt, I tend to hold myself up to impossibly high standards. I do this with respect to many issues in my life and I wish that I could just be easier on myself and kinder with myself. I think that I have improved in this area considerably over the years, but it is still something that I would like to change more, if possible.

My sister and I look very much alike, and I think that we are a mix of both of my parents' looks. Even though my sister is younger than me, people always see the resemblance between us immediately and know that we are sisters. I think that this may be made more obvious to others by the fact that we act and behave so similarly.

When I first fell in love, I fell head over heels. Falling in love was like being on the world's greatest high, nothing else seemed to matter other than wondering when I would see them next and what they would say. I would hang on every word, and it was as though we had endless amounts of energy, with sleep somehow no longer being necessary! It is funny to think of how we could go on like that for so long, when now I cherish every moment of sleep I get and would hardly ever trade it for anything! Falling out of love, however, was somehow entirely the opposite. It is certainly one of the worst feelings that an individual can experience. It is as though all logical reasoning leaves one's mind, and it is only possible to obsess over useless questions such as "what if?" And "if only." When this happened…