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?
This is a brief rough draft, I would love some feedback soon, under a deadline :)
As I went outside and felt the cold breeze wafting off the hills. I look around and see the glorious snow capped mountains and smell the brisk "air freshener" aroma blown from the plentiful pine trees; I realize there isn't a much better place to live. Having grown up in a small beautiful town in the northern California region, where a lumber mill is the towns main source of economic stability, the population is less than four-thousand, and there isn't even a single stop light; I have thrived where others haven't. If I had not grown up here I don't think I would be the same person today. I guess it's a choice one makes when faced with the adversity of small town living where there is limited employment and undefined career paths within the sanctum of the community.
Education and hard work has made it possible for me to change the course that so many have followed. Most individuals stay within the confines of a small town and let the employment opportunities dictate the direction their lives take. I on the other hand have changed this by having strong family core values and a motivation to do well in school.
Through the help of one particular teacher, Mr. Ferguson, who taught six advanced placement classes, Chinese on his lunch hour, and advanced physics on his preparatory break, I saw that the opportunities were endless when given a chance to prosper. His encouragement to succeed helped to motivate me in furthering my schooling past high school.
Most of my cousins live in the same area as I do and I see the way they were molded, allowing drugs and peer pressure to determine the way they live their lives.
Good start so far, for the first sentence there should be a comma instead of a period in between hills and I. Also I see no point in using semi-colons like you have, just put a period.
I helped rephrase a couple of sentences in red:
Through the help of one particular teacher, Mr. Ferguson, I saw that the opportunities were endless when given a chance to prosper. He taught six advanced placement classes, Chinese on his lunch hour, and advanced physics on his preparatory break. Given his hard work and his encouragement to succeed has helped to motivate me in furthering my education past high school
Most of my cousins live in the same area as I do and I see the way they were molded, allowing drugs and peer pressure to determine the way they live their lives.
^^as for this sentence, it doesn't fit in with your story...but then again it is your rough draft.
hoped this helped...
you mind helping me with mine?
