Honestly, I never considered the world I came from to be near as important as the world I was headed for. Now, as college approaches so quickly, I can see how wrong I was, how defined I am by the environment that surrounds me. I am from a beautiful, contradictory world. The two sides of my derivation are so often considered incompatible; I love being the link between them. There is the original side, the side of tradition and fundamentals, a wonderful combination of love for the past and need for human contact. The other side is a quick, electric surge to the future. It is where discovery and logic are tools waged to create understanding. I reside at the nexus of these two intersecting planes. I was born and raised here in this small east Tennessee town. I have always been able to look up and see those mountains run across the horizon. This is a slow gorgeous green world. This land is riddled with southern comfort and people's faces are built with southern courtesy. Here, one finds families and friends and mountain music resounding from rusty trucks. It is an amazing place, and I am particularly fond of my place in it. My time is mainly appropriated between school and church. And, with as much time as I spend there, my church is definitely worth a mention.
I am a member of the two-thousand year tradition of the Catholic faith. I am a reader and a Eucharistic minister on Sundays. I am a Youth Leader on Wednesdays and Mondays. Our youth group is an incredible collection of individuals, and I get the privilege of standing as a role model for the younger classes. Like I said, these are remarkable kids, and I see my main purpose as to make sure everyone knows just how remarkable every person standing around them is. It would be the greatest shame for one of them to go home thinking they did not belong in that church basement. An important aspect of being Catholic in Dixie is just how rare that really is. There is so much ignorance and misinterpretation, and that has had its effect on me. I jump at the chance to clear up confusion and refute an unfounded blanket statement. I love a conversation where two people leave, and both better understand the other. It is an exchange I am proud to say I have had very often.
The other half of my world is an intellectual passion for science and mathematics, as well as literature. It is my school and summer extravaganzas. I have an incredible math teacher who has been dictating those elegant ideas to me for over a year, and I can say he is an enormous driving force for my entrance into the field of mathematics. I admire him without end. Then, there is Governor's School, which I attended two summers ago. This was my first exposure to people who can converse to a crescendo and never cease to be interesting. The next was the Ross Program, which was my first real experience of working with mathematical ideas by myself. Instead of being told the theorems and the proofs, it was eight weeks of plowing through equation and concept. Every experience shed light on a different side of my love for the eloquence of a logical thought.
I have born in me a need for coherency, reason, and understanding, and whether it is understanding the people around me in fellowship or reasoning through abstractions on a chalkboard, I am driven for insight, for conception, for knowledge.
I am a member of the two-thousand year tradition of the Catholic faith. I am a reader and a Eucharistic minister on Sundays. I am a Youth Leader on Wednesdays and Mondays. Our youth group is an incredible collection of individuals, and I get the privilege of standing as a role model for the younger classes. Like I said, these are remarkable kids, and I see my main purpose as to make sure everyone knows just how remarkable every person standing around them is. It would be the greatest shame for one of them to go home thinking they did not belong in that church basement. An important aspect of being Catholic in Dixie is just how rare that really is. There is so much ignorance and misinterpretation, and that has had its effect on me. I jump at the chance to clear up confusion and refute an unfounded blanket statement. I love a conversation where two people leave, and both better understand the other. It is an exchange I am proud to say I have had very often.
The other half of my world is an intellectual passion for science and mathematics, as well as literature. It is my school and summer extravaganzas. I have an incredible math teacher who has been dictating those elegant ideas to me for over a year, and I can say he is an enormous driving force for my entrance into the field of mathematics. I admire him without end. Then, there is Governor's School, which I attended two summers ago. This was my first exposure to people who can converse to a crescendo and never cease to be interesting. The next was the Ross Program, which was my first real experience of working with mathematical ideas by myself. Instead of being told the theorems and the proofs, it was eight weeks of plowing through equation and concept. Every experience shed light on a different side of my love for the eloquence of a logical thought.
I have born in me a need for coherency, reason, and understanding, and whether it is understanding the people around me in fellowship or reasoning through abstractions on a chalkboard, I am driven for insight, for conception, for knowledge.
