A small thing to note India offered little to no support to anyone with a mild handicap or problem until very recently, I don't think I highlighted that but that is important to understand the context.
Any event, no matter how small, that causes a person to reconsider , not only, how he looks at the world , but also, how he looks at himself is a significant experience. For me that event was reading "A short history of nearly everything" by Bill Bryson. On the face of it reading a book might seem a minor thing to list as a significant experience but it affected me profoundly
As a young child , I have been told, was a very inquisitive and analytical child. I always asked how, what and why questions to my parents and relatives. I enjoyed learning how things worked and what made a machine tick. I loved taking things apart (I struggled putting them back together). That spirit was killed bit by bit through primary and middle school
I have Sensory Processing Disorder(SPD). SPD,in addition to a myriad of small, yet annoying, symptoms, causes poor handwriting. Handwriting severely affected my academic success. While I understood most, if not all, of what was taught in class I could never translate that into marks because of the writing involved. Teachers yelled, punished and embarrassed me for a fault that I could not correct.Any joy or thirst I had for knowledge and learning was slowly quashed until I grew uninterested in school and subjects taught.
One thing I still had a passion for was reading, I loved, and still love, reading.In grade 8-9 I mainly read fiction like John Grisham, Greg Isles, Jeffrey Archer,and Arthur Conan Doyle. I rarely read non fiction, my uncle gifted me the book A short history of nearly anything for my 13th birthday, I thought it looked like a daunting read. For a few months it lay on the back of my book shelf, gathering dust. I finally gained the courage to read it about 4 months after receiving it. It was my first foray into the world of non-fiction and I was hooked.
What I connected most with is the acute, childlike sense of wonder seeping through the pages.It is that magic, that wonder which rekindled my love of learning. Bryson floods you with great analogies amazing science and an all round sense of amazement at the beauty of science.What impressed me the most was the fact that complex ideas and theories were written in a way that made it accessible to a 13 year old layman. The practical, small scale ramifications of the science were humorous and revealing simultaneously my favourite one, that I remember to this day is when you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at the height of a hundredth millions of a centimetre. The thrill and joy I had while I was reading reinvigorated my and shook me out of my lackadaisical mindset
This awakening forced me into action, I started to enjoy learning again Youtube tutorials like khan academy became almost daily viewing, non fiction became a significant part of what I read and school instead of disheartening me cheered me up.I was sprung into action. I still received suboptimal grades because of my handwriting but that did not dampen my spirit.The experience of learning was what was important.
The creation of Coursera thrilled me no end I signed up as soon as soon as the first class launched and I thoroughly enjoyed it.School came in the way during grades 10,11 12 and I could hardly fit any courses in but since then Coursera has been a resource I've utilised to the full extent along with other MOOC providers.
This passion would not have awakened if I had not read the book "A short history of nearly everything" it changed everything about me, or should I say it turned me back into the person I once was as a young child
The best essays I've read leave out the event because A. if your essay is clear, the reader will understand the event without you explicitly stating it, and B. if you give away the event early, then there's less incentive to keep reading. However, it's a matter of preference, and it won't make or break your essay. So if you have really reservations about leaving the experience out, put back in:
I wasn't always like that and, thankfully, I did not stay that way for much longer. I can credit my change from annoying teenager back to curious learner to the book A Short History of Nearly Everythinga book by Bill Bryson.
And then take out:
I was not always like that.
When Bryson talks about how phosphorus was discovered accidentally by Henning Brand as he tried to turn human urine into gold, how can you not smile?
And maybe one or two more words, and you should be back at your character limit.
