Summary:
This essay is about me basically and my self-identity as an individual, a writer, and a reader.
Everyone from coaches to teachers and teammates would describe me in countless amounts of words: self-motivated, multitalented, chatterbox, hard worker, just to name a few. On the other hand, my family and friends are a whole different ballpark. Guess what you get if they could portray me in one term? Stubbornness accompanied by emphasis on its extremity with exclamation point. I couldn't have it any better. In my opinion, these five words definitely suit me: curious, oddball, fun-inclined, humorist, and bookworm.
Did I just say bookworm? Oh yeah. I am no prodigy on computers or molecular biology, but I do love books because it is where I find inspiration, unleashed imagination, and the ever undying chance to escape from all chaos in the real world. Let's say that it is the only thing other than friends and softball that keeps my teen life sane. Whenever opportunity strikes I jump at it, go find a comfortable place and blastoff. As long as I'm hooked just about anything is read--adventure, biography, research, magazines, comics, fantasy, science-fiction, historical fiction....you name it, I have read at least one book under that category. What can I say? But really, thrillers such as Harry Potter and murder mysteries like The Da Vinci Code are my favorite because they have the maximum amount of intestine-twisting suspense and what I like to call "brain-quaking" shock. Chicken Soup is excellent too; it is a series which collars lesson-teaching--such things I never heard from my parents that is from a stranger's perspective--stories from other people like you so when I go through rough patches I read anything related with Chicken Soup and at the end my heart is magically lifted. Those are the ultimate things I look for in books from my favorite store of all-time, Barnes and Nobles. When it is not possible to go shop there, I borrow books from my elder sister Stefanie or Mom.
Other than softball and bookishness, my hobbies are food, movies, napping, the mall, playing with my pets and occasionally reflection. Also I like to finish off long weeks with a reward on my favorite day, Friday. It is all about favorites: pepperoni pizza and Diet Coke all topped off with a combo of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and a cherry. Afterwards my family and I enjoy a movie thriller such as "Paycheck," "The Italian Job," et cetera.
The classes I have right now seem to be entertaining all the same, so while we are on subject of thinking what's what, chemistry is chosen since I have a natural curiosity for it. Questions appear such as why is the water green in result of the reaction of aluminum foil and chlorine? Why couldn't it be another color? That is not really why I take to chemistry easily. It is the lab work--go ahead and call me crazy but because amazing things happen, I absolutely love it. "Hey that's wickedly cool! How did that happen""--an older version of a screaming five-year-old running around, "Fishes! Fishes have gills! Fishes have a tail!"
Well, who says life is a bowl full of cherries? I do not like chores, illness, cooked vegetables (yuck!), unpunctuality, tiredness, grades below B minus, and having no time with my family or friends due to first prioritized softball. There are times when my sisters disturb me in the middle of a desperate situation to complete homework and I get very ticked off.
However, those dislikes were benign compared to writing and reading in the past. I never really was ecstatic about it because at the beginning of fourth grade I greatly struggled with writing proper grammar let alone understanding important details in novels, which sounded awfully boring and several times I believed it was hopeless to write papers on something that didn't make sense. Oh sure, my family has not one, not two but seven two-up to seven-level cabinets or bookshelves full of books from grade 3 to college but they weren't big on reading back then. See why now? My grades needed to increase so I grudgingly obtained a tutor--Elaine Gray who came twice weekly--and for good measure, Mom bought me the first book of Harry potter. Both Elaine and I read it then discussed everything from what happened to predictions and questions. Pretty much the same were done for other novels.
I thought all this activity we were doing wouldn't help for extra time were required for me to accustom myself to this literature; it was very slow progress but once I got the hang of reading, my writing came along too and eventually Stef or Mom did not have to proofread my works. Elaine stopped coming by the time sixth grade started because I was familiar enough with English and Mrs. Buchanan noticed the huge difference between my fifth and sixth grade papers.
In that three-year segment of time I recall several papers: a myth story, book report on Helen Keller, compare and contrasts of strawberries and cherries, persuasion on how kids should behave at lunch dismissal and what punishment should be done for those who run and shout, a brief biographical paper on Sacagawea, et cetera. Lots of reading was included as well. My classmates and I participated in book clubs but unfortunately, I can't remember any books or their own details except My Brother Sam is Dead, which Mrs. Buchanan read to the class for one chapter everyday while I had my own copy. We then jittered over what was true and fiction in that book because it was related to the famous American Revolutionary War.
Despite the drastic improvement, I did not realize how much I loved writing until the summer before eighth grade. There were so many poetic lyrics that vented my feelings that they covered half the documents on my laptop and during the night I was always "sleeping on it," trying to decide what to write next. The idea could be from my dreams, school, sports, a song movie, or book that I relate myself with. I'm almost nocturnal so whenever it was pitch dark outside I would write because I find it is more convenient to think when the world is quiet.
Three years from now I imagine myself playing softball for the University of Texas, UCLA, or Arizona with majors in oceanography and history. In order for that to happen, classes relevant to those subjects with context need be taken. European History AP and Chemistry CP are what classes I have now. My junior year I will take Biology AP and US History; senior year is Government/Economics but I have not decided on a class linked with oceanography just yet. I would like to say my long-term goals include the Olympics, traveling all over the world, exploring the sea, starting a family, teaching history and promotion education for disabled people such as the deaf.
This is the complete article, containing 1,141 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).
