Personal Reflection
Personal and Reflective Essay: Two exemplars
A Hard Skull and a Hard Lesson by Marie Forbes
I was only sixteen when it happened. Until then my world had seemed a safe and happy place, where the sun shone most days and every story had a happy ending. Now I know it is not always like that. Now I know the truth – and I live my life very differently. It was a beautiful Autumn day, warm and bright. I had just finished supervising a strenuous game of hockey at school, as part of my Higher in Physical Education, and I decided on the spur of the moment to nip home at lunch-time to be pampered by my mum for twenty minutes (at least I hoped she would pamper me) before bracing myself for a maths test that afternoon. I left hurriedly – most of my friends were still in class – and took the short cut through the woods. I remember the golds and reds and yellows of the changing leaves and the way acorns periodically plopped off the trees as I set off home. I cannot remember any pain, though there must – surely – have been a moment of sheer agony as the thing hit me squarely on the back of the head. I say ‘thing’ because the police never found the weapon. From my injuries they said it was probably a metal bar. I never saw my assailant either, though I heard his short breaths as the world turned black and white and I fell to my knees among the leaves. I recall a slight grunt from somewhere to my left, a whiff of male sweat, a shadow stretching over me. Then, somehow, I was on my feet running. Running for my life.
I have no memory of the rest of that day or the next or the next, but my mother has filled in the blanks. Apparently I managed to run three quarters of a mile to our house, crashed in through the back door and collapsed with my face in the dog’s dish. Fortunately my mother was there to save me from suffocating in Pedigree Chum and to phone the ambulance. When I woke in hospital, three days of my life had vanished forever and I had nearly gone with
A Hard Skull and a Hard Lesson by Marie Forbes
I was only sixteen when it happened. Until then my world had seemed a safe and happy place, where the sun shone most days and every story had a happy ending. Now I know it is not always like that. Now I know the truth – and I live my life very differently. It was a beautiful Autumn day, warm and bright. I had just finished supervising a strenuous game of hockey at school, as part of my Higher in Physical Education, and I decided on the spur of the moment to nip home at lunch-time to be pampered by my mum for twenty minutes (at least I hoped she would pamper me) before bracing myself for a maths test that afternoon. I left hurriedly – most of my friends were still in class – and took the short cut through the woods. I remember the golds and reds and yellows of the changing leaves and the way acorns periodically plopped off the trees as I set off home. I cannot remember any pain, though there must – surely – have been a moment of sheer agony as the thing hit me squarely on the back of the head. I say ‘thing’ because the police never found the weapon. From my injuries they said it was probably a metal bar. I never saw my assailant either, though I heard his short breaths as the world turned black and white and I fell to my knees among the leaves. I recall a slight grunt from somewhere to my left, a whiff of male sweat, a shadow stretching over me. Then, somehow, I was on my feet running. Running for my life.
I have no memory of the rest of that day or the next or the next, but my mother has filled in the blanks. Apparently I managed to run three quarters of a mile to our house, crashed in through the back door and collapsed with my face in the dog’s dish. Fortunately my mother was there to save me from suffocating in Pedigree Chum and to phone the ambulance. When I woke in hospital, three days of my life had vanished forever and I had nearly gone with