Autobiograpical+Incident

=  Autobiographical Incident   = This was the day I looked forward to after completing our successful field hockey season at Kempsville Middle School. This is the day when the team has an end of the year get together to look back on our season and to look forward to the next one. As an eighth grader finishing my 3 years of playing field hockey for KMS, I always remembered of how much a privilege it was to be an eighth grader. In past years, the team congratulated you for your effort you put into the season and we had a treat of slurpees. However, every end of the season get together there was always something that you wouldn’t expect. For example, when I was in the sixth and seventh grades, the team decided to make human ice cream sundaes. We would get in trouble for creating a path of chocolate syrup through the gym. I was expecting to have the same experience when I would one day be an eighth grader, but you never know what could happen. Finally the bell rang and I raced to the mat room where we would return our uniforms and get our slurpees. I have been thinking about this moment ever since sixth grade and it was finally here! I couldn’t wait to see my teammates. Everything was going great, with jokes which made our laughter fill the mat room. We were having our own unique party with dancing and joyous cartwheels across the mat. So our coach decided to play a game to raise our confidence for ourselves. The game was for one person to go into the circle and your teammates would tell you something positive about yourself. This game was meant to be optimistic and not negative, and not to criticize the person in the circle. This game had such great opportunity to have an upbeat affect on you. So the captains took their place to go first in the circle. Everyone said great things about them and now it was my turn. I took my place in the middle and I went around the circle with everyone saying that I was hardworking, positive, and had great field hockey skills. I appreciated everything that they said because it really did feel like they cared. It was hunky dorky until my coach had to chime in. She started off her speech to me with, “I have one negative thing to say about you.” In my head I was thinking that was a horrible way to start out to raise my confidence. Then she began to criticize me wearing my bows in my hair. She stated that bows are “too girly” and they are for cheerleaders to wear. In field hockey, we play in skirts. I don’t understand why I can’t wear bows. Bows are my signature. The colors and patterns in my bows that I wear are one way that I express myself. Bows aren’t just a long piece of fabric; they are a security blanket which I have been wearing ever since 5th grade. It sets me different then everyone else. My coach took it has a harmless comment and thought I would not have even cared. The thing that made me most aggravated was the unsportsmanlike comments that I continued to receive from my teammates. Well I was hurt. For a day that I looked forward to, this was not the way it was supposed to end. My coach was my role model and my ideals of a coach were crushed when I was teased in front of my teammates. It may have seemed like a harmless action, but to me I felt that I was being singled out.