Undergraduate / Non-finction books; Common App- Topic of your choice [4]

When I was five years old I surprisingly first clung onto non-fiction books, primarily focusing on my fascination towards insects, arachnids, and arthropods in general and slowly branched out to appreciate all forms of literature. I spent a lot of my free time capturing little bugs, getting bitten by them, and especially reading about them. Abdomens, thoraxes, chitinous exoskeletons, the differences between the subphylums of Arthropoda; I devoured little books and facts about these creatures and adopted a scientific mindset at a young age. It wasn't until I was introduced to Greek mythology by my mother that I started to appreciate myths and later on fiction. The first myth I read was about Arachne, a mortal weaver who proved her skill greater than that of a god and in spite was turned into a spider. It was a smooth transition, going from non-fiction to fiction, because the story satisfied my interest in spiders as well as adding an element of fantasy. It wasn't very long till I was reading about Jason and the Argonauts, and being the adventurous little fellow that I was, I realized that books could satisfy my taste for adventure without me actually hurting myself. I soon found more adventure in books than in ringing doorbells and detonating firecrackers. Enveloping myself in Greek mythology, Brian Jacques' novels, Brothers Grimm, and Edgar Allen Poe short stories made me give a cold shoulder to reality at night. So there I was, Joe Feeney, the boy with two names not one, always found with my dilapidated Webster's New Pocket Dictionary that lacked certain obscure words that I jotted in myself, a novel, and a CD player to substitute outside noise with my own ambiance. My parents encouraged this habit of reading I developed and would let me stay home from elementary school every now and then to read and play music. I feel as if this liberty let me grow and develop a lot more than I would have otherwise since I learned more outside of school than I did inside of it. I adopted Mark Twain's philosophy of not letting school interfere with my education. This doesn't mean that I didn't like school in the slightest, I just found some ideas in the books I read and the math in music I played to be a lot more interesting and insightful than what was taught at school. In my childhood there was no passionless drive for success powered by paternal pressure and a stunted sense of individuality. I never felt like a sad, repressed child of pathological adults whose vicarious experience of their children's life is their only interest, something I truly loathe. I, however, feel and felt happier than the morning sun that I was allowed to stay home and read.

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