Entry 5 - My personal descriptors...

The night before Christmas Day this past year spawned a dream that would change my way of thinking for times to come afterwards.  Whether spawned by the chili peppers of tamales eaten the night before or the wind outside, the dream was one in which I jumped out of a helicopter into an ocean below, except in this case the ocean was a black hole that only promised infinite loops within infinite blackness.  Call me mad if you wish, but because of this dream, adrenaline pumped through my veins and while falling into that black hole I was able to think about my life in retrospect as someone does when about to die.  Though entering a mystery is far from dying, this crazy experience forced me to analyze what I wanted to do with my life and how best to go about living it to the best of my ability.  Once I come to an answer, I will be able to one day eat a full meal, hang around with what family members are still living then - we do have expiration dates -, and take my last breath knowing I left a meaningful footprint on this Earth (rather than just a carbon footprint the Earth would be more than happy to get rid of).  This memory of mine will now help me to describe myself in three adjectives, adjectives I hope will help me realize that answer: passionate, determined, gentle-hearted.

These tamales most likely allowed me to ponder on what truly made me unique in my own niche here on Earth, each tamale sort of representing a trait of mine bundled in attractiveness waiting to be unwrapped by my conscious self

 Passion is translated to a thing that someone has when an opinion is so potent that it drives that person's life towards a goal.  My being passionate gives me purpose in life, and helps me to tackle deadlines, especially if they hold great importance in my life.  One such deadline was the day my Multigenre Project was due during my second semester in Freshman Year at iPoly.  The night before this looming obstacle, I had to design my project board, write a presentation to go along with the board, and make the final touches on the project’s many genre components.  There was a moment at around 10pm where I had about given up, tempted to lay the project to rest at an AP and leave to my tv room where I would watch a movie and become lost in a plot better than mine.  However, this submission to stress went against the programming of my genes, so much so that passion rose to the occasion and reminded me as to why I had chosen the topic of sea otters for the project that lay in shatters on my dining room table.  This reminder of my love for ecology and my interest in the daily struggles of sea otters out at sea propelled me forward out of the depths of doubt, and once again, I was able to form my ideas into reality and my project into a point.  It is this passion that will help me survive my own struggles and it is passion, I now realize, that helps me to accumulate interests in life and all it has to offer.  It is also passion that sets me apart from many people I have met throughout my 16 years on Earth, and so I have come to see this internal drive to ‘be and do something’ as a quality that helps me to enjoy independence.  In my mind, it is independence that enables us to truly enjoy a social life and it is independence that helps me to make my mark on the world, unbound by the inhibitions of popular belief.  So far, this passion has benefitted me, not just by keeping me on task, but by also giving me freedom as to what I want in life and how to act on what I think, such as leading a club or two and volunteering at places where I can inform people on the complexity of Earth.  

This here was a delicious Mexican mocha I had the privilege of gulping  down at Pomona College; my passion for passion for food, among other virus in life, gives me the want to try out new cuisines and restaurants with my family and friends

 As I have stated before, I consider myself determined, in most everything I do.  At my middle school, I was always considered a peacekeeper who would never let a promise fall into oblivion and a person who would put determination into friendship after friendship.  In certain situations, this determination to be a ‘good friend’ made me a bit of a punching bag and so, often times, I would be needed one day and abandoned the next day, until eventually, after graduating middle school, all of my 8th classmates cut off ties with me.  The way things turned out in this situation hit me hard, as if my investment in a stock market suddenly caved in on itself.  At iPoly, this determination transformed itself into something of a more reliable investment: academics.  Using determination as a way of working (answering the ‘how’ rather than the ‘why’) has helped me to become proactive in my studies, and have the perseverance to overcome challenges in group projects and beyond.  This trait of mine has especially helped me facilitate groups - a true pleasure of mine that exercises the habit of an ENTP being prone to leadership.  One such instance had me working on the Freshmen semester-long project called ‘Infotainment’.  Through interviews held the month before the project started, I became the producer of my ‘to-be’ house majoring in ecology.  Being producer meant I had to raise money for and sponsor the show my house was to put together as a main component of ‘Infotainment’.  With determination as my ally, and the passion for the environment and conservation that nourished it, I made sure each of my departments was productive and having a swell time by the time the project ended.  The trait of mine also provided the organization and will-power that allowed me to raise a whopping $300 from meeting with business owners in the Pomona area.  In this way, determination has proven itself to be a thing that changes throughout one’s life, adapting to his or her wants, and making those wants a tad bit more realistic.  My only hope is that determination can help me to come out of my shell a bit more, so that the friendships at iPoly I currently have the pleasure of having last leagues of time.

 

Taken at the riverbed embedded in Eaton Canyon, this photo of my dog Kaia shows a glimpse of determination in an unlikely case - my dog barks at strangers and grumbles for food all the time and so shows behavior that knows what it needs in life to be happy

The last trait I wish to claim as my own is that of being gentle-hearted.  It was a sunny day, and my 8th grade class and I were in the peach-scented science room passing around our yearbooks so that each of us got a note and signature from each other.  After this ritual was carried out, we were dismissed from school at 2:00 PM.  Once I got home, I looked through these ’autographs’ as a kid does when opening gifts set under the Christmas tree, reading each note with what I knew about the person who wrote it, trying in vain to think what he or she thought as they penned each stroke of the hand into a word.  One of the notes I found most relatable was penned by my Junior-high science teacher Mrs. Cohen, a lady who single-handedly instigated my passion and addiction to science.  She said, “Your brilliant mind and gentle heart will take you far in life”.  These descriptors of mine rang clearly through my conscience, as if they were waiting to be found, and after this realization, I was and am able to move forth in life knowing that being humble and working at the pace of my own trumpet will reap benefits for both my confidence and my ability to show my true colors.  Being gentle-hearted has thus far allowed me to relate to my peers and realize my faults, and how to improve on these inabilities.  For example, for some time, I have struggled with the legibility of my handwriting, making my letters look as though they were set to melt in some oven.  The fact that my heart is unassuming made me laugh at this inability to write clearly, and so I have made a passionate effort to write as if my SAT score depended on it as it sort of does, with the hand-written essay portion and all.  I do hope this gentle-heartedness will allow me to relate more so to my friends, so that they can have the freedom to talk to me as their confident and safe-box never to be opened after being opened once in mutual agreement.

This snail I most relate to, taking my time to enjoy life while analyzing my skills and areas of needed improvement; salt, or cockiness, is my kryptonite