The prompt asked me to analyze an intellectual experience and its effect one me. The essay is supposed to be below 500 words.. It's almost completed but I'm stuck at the end, where I'm truly supposed to wrap things up!
Please be brutally honest. Any help would be highly highly appreciated!
It all began with a wad of spit. A group of drooling teenagers formed a line every day after school in Mr. Negrelli's science class. They had heard rumors of how they would be pinched and poked, of how with a few tests, they would learn the deepest secrets of their identity. They entered the room expecting to see Dr. Frankenstein in a laboratory suit. Instead, they saw amateur Fryda wearing oversize latex gloves, equally enthusiastic but slightly lacking in skill. Tongs held clumsily in one hand and a stopwatch gripped in another were her unrefined tools of discovery.
It was eighth grade when I decided to step into the coliseum of State Science Fair competitors. Familiar with exploding baking soda volcanoes and Rube Goldberg contraptions, I had fallen to the misconception that science projects were supposed to imitate and impress. While I was still expected to construct a presentation twice my size, I would have to abandon the mounds of paper-mâché for the more polished mounds of data and research.
Shadows formed under my eyes as I spent nights inputting the results of the Myers-Briggs tests--which measure introversion and extroversion--and comparing them to the masses of saliva I collected. Would there even be any relationship between the two? As drowsiness shuffled in, so did many forms of lucidity: modest drool suddenly transformed into a product of amygdala stimulation! I started seeing happiness measured in endorphin levels and temperature measured in neurons firing in the hypothalamus. After all, I was weighing personality in grams of spit--anything was possible! It was an exciting yet humbling experience--to feel so much like a scientist but still be so far from one.
Instead, I was a student that had joined the bizarre group of individuals that embraced this extra work like an adventure. We did not receive any grades for our work but I soon realized that this was never a problem. Standing on the same stage as students whose inventions would be patented by NASA was a privilege; a simple sense of accomplishment was more than enough.
Once I finally had a finished product, I could stare into the eyes of the judge, three-inch binder in hand, oversize poster board in back of me, and feel confident. Nevertheless, by this time, the project was more than a display. It had had catalyzed my fascination with the human body and introduced me to methods I could use to find answers to the most peculiar questions. This dynamic and hands-on experience made all my other assignments feel like worksheets of tedium and predictability.
In the middle of my presentation, I looked over at the graph I had plotted, and smirked. As odd as it sounded, introversion and saliva production had everything to do with each other! Research had proven what I thought was an unlikely combination. It had made me bigger than I ever was--and incited a thirst for more. While it all began with a wad of spit, it ended in discovery.
Frydafly Edit Delete Move 98.242.207.84
Jan 1, 2010 #4
Please be brutally honest. Any help would be highly highly appreciated!
It all began with a wad of spit. A group of drooling teenagers formed a line every day after school in Mr. Negrelli's science class. They had heard rumors of how they would be pinched and poked, of how with a few tests, they would learn the deepest secrets of their identity. They entered the room expecting to see Dr. Frankenstein in a laboratory suit. Instead, they saw amateur Fryda wearing oversize latex gloves, equally enthusiastic but slightly lacking in skill. Tongs held clumsily in one hand and a stopwatch gripped in another were her unrefined tools of discovery.
It was eighth grade when I decided to step into the coliseum of State Science Fair competitors. Familiar with exploding baking soda volcanoes and Rube Goldberg contraptions, I had fallen to the misconception that science projects were supposed to imitate and impress. While I was still expected to construct a presentation twice my size, I would have to abandon the mounds of paper-mâché for the more polished mounds of data and research.
Shadows formed under my eyes as I spent nights inputting the results of the Myers-Briggs tests--which measure introversion and extroversion--and comparing them to the masses of saliva I collected. Would there even be any relationship between the two? As drowsiness shuffled in, so did many forms of lucidity: modest drool suddenly transformed into a product of amygdala stimulation! I started seeing happiness measured in endorphin levels and temperature measured in neurons firing in the hypothalamus. After all, I was weighing personality in grams of spit--anything was possible! It was an exciting yet humbling experience--to feel so much like a scientist but still be so far from one.
Instead, I was a student that had joined the bizarre group of individuals that embraced this extra work like an adventure. We did not receive any grades for our work but I soon realized that this was never a problem. Standing on the same stage as students whose inventions would be patented by NASA was a privilege; a simple sense of accomplishment was more than enough.
Once I finally had a finished product, I could stare into the eyes of the judge, three-inch binder in hand, oversize poster board in back of me, and feel confident. Nevertheless, by this time, the project was more than a display. It had had catalyzed my fascination with the human body and introduced me to methods I could use to find answers to the most peculiar questions. This dynamic and hands-on experience made all my other assignments feel like worksheets of tedium and predictability.
In the middle of my presentation, I looked over at the graph I had plotted, and smirked. As odd as it sounded, introversion and saliva production had everything to do with each other! Research had proven what I thought was an unlikely combination. It had made me bigger than I ever was--and incited a thirst for more. While it all began with a wad of spit, it ended in discovery.
Frydafly Edit Delete Move 98.242.207.84
Jan 1, 2010 #4
