Essay contest: What’s the most fun you’ve ever had?

By Sandra Naba, North HS (Torrance)

The most fun I ever had was when I was 12. I remember getting a call from the mother of my friend Stephanie. She told me that Stephanie was released from the hospital and wanted to have a sleepover.

My friend Stephanie had leukemia, a cancer of the blood. It’s a lethal, but noncontagious disease.

That night I went over to her house and had a blast. We went to the movies. We even snuck into a second movie. We all went out to dinner to celebrate her health. When we got home, we watched a video. Two more girls from Stephanie’s school came by. We stayed up late telling secrets, playing truth or dare and playing cards.

The next morning, we went out for breakfast. Then I went home.

By Teodora Nikolova, 14, Van Nuys HS

The funniest and most exciting week of my life occurred way back in my home country, Bulgaria, when I was 10. It was during the month of August, and my whole family felt like taking a week off. We decided to look for a nice place next to the Black Sea. When I say my family, I mean my mom, dad, younger brother, cousin and both of my grandparents. And of course our little dog, Julie.

Since we only had one car, we packed our stuff on top of it and everybody squeezed in. We traveled like that for more than five hours. I sat on my grandma’s lap. My brother sat on my mom’s lap, and my cousin got shoved in the corner. We thought that when we reached the first city by the coast there would be plenty of room in the hotels for us to settle in. Little did we know that it being August and the hottest month of the year, that every hotel by the beach was packed.

We spent the rest of the day traveling from city to city. Each place was miles away from the last. We even reached the border where Bulgaria and Turkey meet and still couldn’t find a place to stay.

It started to get late, and we were tired and hungry. Everyone thought it was useless to continue, but we kept looking for a room. Finally, we found a little village named Achtopol. My grandma remembered that one of her old girlfriends lived there. It turned out that the girlfriend owned a hotel and had a room for us. We were exhausted, but very happy. We unpacked and went straight to bed.

The next week was the coolest of my life. First, we went swimming. The waves were big and the water was clear. We built sandcastles and buried each other in the sand. One of the prettiest things I saw was the sunset on the beach. The sea suddenly calmed down and seemed tired from playing all day. The sun looked orange before it sank into the sea.

The second day we spent fishing on a lake close to the woods. It was very exciting to me, because it was the first time I went camping. My grandma made the fire and cooked homemade beans. I have to admit this was one of the best meals I ever had.

By Grisselle Laitio, North HS

The most fun I ever had was when my boyfriend blindfolded me and drove me to a spot on the beach for our one-year anniversary. As I walked onto the sand, I already knew where I was.

Still, it was so exciting. I was anxious to find out what the surprise was. It was nighttime, so that made it even more romantic. When we finally reached the spot, I took the blind fold off. There were 10 lit candles sitting in the sand near a warm large blanket with boxes of food from Lomeli’s Italian Restaurant.

I immediately hugged my boyfriend and gave him a big kiss. I would have never thought of something as special as that.

The most fun I ever had was when I was 6. My dad and I were spending some father-daughter time blowing bubbles on our porch. All of a sudden, one of the bubbles went up my dad’s nose! It was the funniest thing in the world. We were both laughing so hard. A little too hard, because the bubble came flying out of his nose! We laughed so hard that we cried.

That took place 13 years ago and to this day when this story is told, I can’t help but crack up.

Homecoming dance
By Bhrea Thomas, Morningside HS (Inglewood)

This year I wasn’t really looking forward to Homecoming, since we lost our football game. The dance was in the gym and people on the Homecoming committee promised our gym would look nice. But when we got there, it was a different story.

Homecoming started at 7 p.m. Since I wasn’t too thrilled about going, I took my time getting ready. Then a couple of friends came over. We rented PT-Cruisers and decided to make it a lady’s night. By the time we got to the dance, it was 9 p.m. When we walked in it was still our gym, but with balloons all over the place. It was horrible.

So we had to make the best of a bad situation. We had a lot of strict dancing rules, such as no backing up and no grinding. So one friend decided to go old school with dancing.

From that point on, we had a blast! We brought back every old school dance we could think of—pop lockin’, the moonwalk and the Cabbage Patch. We danced and laughed for hours.