Close your eyes. Picture yourself in a classroom; Anomalous Alex, UC prompt 2

Prompt "Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?"

Other than for simple grammar, any help at all would be great!

Anomalous Alex

Close your eyes. Picture yourself in a classroom filled with collaborating students at work. At one table, you see a group working together on a robot. At another table, you observe kids busy with their science projects. Everywhere, you hear the sound of numbers and equations, and see the magic of student engineers working as a team. Wouldn't you want to be a part of them? Wouldn't you want in? That's what the old Envious Alex wanted. He was so caught up with the collaborative feel of the math and science community that he paid little attention to which of the subjects he actually enjoyed; it was like someone admiring the look of a pair of shoes without concern for the function. Envious Alex tried to force himself into this group. He attended engineering clubs, and joined tech teams. But this didn't work. Why? Envious Alex just couldn't understand the language the others were using. "What the heck is an Autonomous mode?" he wondered. He had forced glamorous shoes on himself and could not walk in them. This ultimately resulted in Envious Alex's downfall.

Upon a journey for advice, The old Alex then stumbled across a good friend, Jake Lee, "The Mighty Wizard," so called for being a club president, and his excellent leadership others trusted. He definitely was Anomalous. "If only he could bestow his powers upon me." Envious Alex thought.

"If I did such a thing, you would ever more be wearing shoes that didn't fit you," replied this wizard. "Don't take my SketchersŽ, rather select a path to pursue, and then choose your shoes accordingly." In modern words, Jake the Wizard was telling Envious Alex to find his own way to excel, or something that he saw the most of him in; the collaborative community would follow naturally.

"Be unique, be... Anomalous!" cried that mighty wizard.
With the advice of the wizard, along with that of some close friends, Envious Alex underwent the transformation into me, Anomalous Alex, with all attachments to pretty shoes gone. Eager to try out his new powers, the new Alex searched not outside of himself, but inside, for paths to choose from. Nothing from before ever changed; the other students still walked their same paths and shined with their bright shoes. But Envious Alex was no longer, and I, Anomalous Alex did not focus on the fancy footwear.

Which paths did I then choose to walk? It varied throughout the years. I have once set foot on the path for animation, another time on a path for video game design and programming. For each path, I acquired the shoes particular for that job; I joined my school's animation team when I trekked the animation path, I joined a pre-college program at Digipen while I wandered the path for computer science and game development. The clubs and courses I now take in school are the shoes that are fit just for me; these shoes are to help me pursue my own path in engineering and computer science.

So would Envious Alex approve of Anomalous Alex's ways? Did the new Alex achieve the glamorous shoes that the old Alex had longed for? Maybe, maybe not; but the shoes that I wear now fit me perfectly- glamorous or not. This is what I learned when I took this new identity; the shoes you wear should only reflect the path you choose to walk.

Now, whenever I see another group of students working in harmony on a large project, and the ghost of Envious Alex marvels at their shoes, I turn to the old Alex and say "They are voyaging their path, and I shall voyage mine."