Fear

In one of my previous essays, I has discussed about the symptoms, treatments and psychological theories of phobias and fears, as well as encouraged people to confront and overcome the fears in their hearts.  To be honest, it’s easier said than done.  Personally, I had a fear that I still fail to face and tackle down until today – the fear of water.  No matter how many times I attempted to learn swimming, I couldn’t stay in the water for more than ten minutes.  My scare of water didn’t come from the frightening stories that my parents told me to keep me away from rivers, lakes and any other dangerous places when I was a little child.  It came from an unforgettable real-life experience.

When I was in the eighth grade, my school scheduled free swimming period for students every summer.  Basically, we could stay in water and do whatever we want.  Every one of us had received three-hour safety training and basic first aid instructions before we could even get close to the swimming pool.  The school arranged about ten teachers around to watch over us, and the whole pool was kept really shallow to ensure our safety.  The summer swimming had seven-year history in my school, and before my friend and I stepped into the pool, there was not any proceeding accident, not even a tiny one.  Every message I got from the school was that we were safe and we could enjoy the fine weather and cool water, so even if I didn’t know how to swim, I was willing to get into the water and learn.  However, the tragedy still happened.  Because there were too many students scrambled into the pool that day, the water level raised to an unexpected height.  No one noticed the potential danger.  After staying for a while, I went to buy some drink for me and my friend and left her alone in the pool.  When I came back from the nearby convenience store, I found my friend floating in the water in a strange way.  The students around her were so concentrated on their own entertainment that surprisingly, no one found her stayed face-down, unmoved for a while.  I felt something went wrong immediately, and approached her as quickly as I could.  I shook her violently, but she didn’t respond to me – she never could.  My shocking behavior drew teachers’ and other students’ attention.  Some students started to scream, then two teachers dragged me away from my friend’s body.  Out of the protection for me, I was not allowed to be involved in the following investigation and lawsuit, so I never know what happened to my friend and why she died in the swimming pool with so many people’s presence.  Soon after, I transferred to another school because of my parents’ concern.  I never had the chance to talk with my friend’s parents about the last day of their daughter’s life.

Today, so many years after the accident, I could barely remember my friend’s face.  But the feelings at the moment when I found her death never faded away.  However, even though I felt deeply sorry for my friend, I was not troubled by the tragedy throughout my teenage life.  What troubled me was that I couldn’t help thinking of her once I approached a swimming pool, a stream, or a little lake.  Deep sense of fear struck me even when I walked on a bridge crossing over a river.  During the swimming class later on, I felt difficult to breathe and kept thinking about the threat of drowning if I stayed in the water for a period of time.  The stress once brought me leg cramp on the class.  After that, my parents forbidden me from learning swimming.  Now as an adult, I feel ashamed to be so afraid of water and still not capable of swimming.

Fear is one of the most complicated and stressful human emotions.  Sometimes you believe you have conquered it, but similar situation still trigger your unpleasant memory and a fear response event though the present situation does not truly warrant the need to be afraid.  Maybe some of us are just not as courageous as we pretend to be, and there are some physical or emotional traumas we can never get over.

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Do you Lovett at Lovett?

Growing up, I had always gone to school with my best friends who all lived around me. We did everything together: school, Chinese lessons, dance classes, birthday parties, bus rides, everything. You name it, and I did it with my childhood friends. So you can imagine my surprise when my parents came up to me one day in 5th grade, and told me that I was to apply for private school, something none of my other friends were doing at all. I first got angry like a little girl, then started crying like a little girl, and finally gave up, because what’s a little girl like me to do when your parents tell you to do something? You have to do it.

So I started applying to different schools, secretly trying to sabotage my interviews or my essays so they wouldn’t accept me. Surprisingly enough, I got accepted to the Lovett School, an “independent, coeducational day school serving children from Kindergarten through Grade 12”. My parents were excited, because apparently Lovett was the second best private school in Atlanta, but I was mad because they didn’t let me go to the other private school that looked liked Hogwarts. Dickens would probably say that “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, but I just thought it was the worst of times.

Nonetheless, I started going to Lovett in 6th grade. I lived 45 minutes away, had to get a collared shirt and plaid skirt uniform, and, worst of all, couldn’t be with my best friends. None of that mattered to my parents, as they just wanted me to have a better education. So I decided to suck it up, and give the school a try. I put on the uniform everyday as well as a smile and tried to enjoy the great opportunity my parents had given me.

As time passed and I slowly grew more accustomed to Lovett, I began to make some new friends. We all had class together, struggled in PE together, and joked about it after school over chocolate-chip cookies. I started to fit in. When I went home to my childhood friends, they would ask me, “Do you Lovett at Lovett?” to which I would respond, “Yeah! I think so!”

Finally, the first spirit NUD (no uniform day) came around, and we were all supposed to wear blue. I showed up to school not thinking much about what I was wearing, only to see all of my friends were wearing very nice, preppy clothes. Sitting at lunch with them, I felt like an outsider again. I was wearing my favorite handed down shirt from my mom, while everyone else was sporting their favorite designer shirts. I felt like a Weasley trying to blend in with a bunch of Malfoys. In that moment, I was so embarrassed that I didn’t fit in. And from that day on, I was so embarrassed to be different from my friends in any way possible. I was humiliated to not be from the same area or not go to the same church (or even go to church at all). I was even more ashamed that I was Asian, and not White like the rest of my friends. This time, when my childhood friends asked me again, “Do you Lovett at Lovett?” I responded again, “Yeah! Of course!”

But that was a lie. I DIDN’T Lovett at Lovett. My school friends began to ostracize me because of my differences (middle school is a dark place where people actually do that), and I didn’t fit in at school. However, I didn’t completely fit in at home with my childhood friends either, and I was embarrassed to tell them that I was not enjoying my new school. Years passed, as I felt stuck in this limbo of in between-ness, belonging to neither world. I started to hate myself, because I felt so different and alone. My mom noticed and asked me to open up to her more. Eventually, I told her what had been going on with my friends. She opened up to me with her story, about her coming to America, and how she felt alone and had no one to turn to. She then gave me the most valuable advice I had ever received, “love yourself, and remember that your independence is your best quality. You don’t belong to anyone but yourself.”

As cheesy as that moment was, I will never forget my mom’s advice about loving myself and owning my independence. From then on, I looked at life in a different way. I no longer tried to be somebody that I was not. And the next time someone asked me, “Do you Lovett at Lovett?” I found myself saying neither yes nor no. I didn’t even try to lie or cover up my true feelings. Instead, I realized that my answer didn’t really matter, because I didn’t need to Lovett at Lovett to love myself.

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The Mindset of Change

Matt’s House – Boise, ID – “I think the ethical egoist perspective makes sense; people should act in their self-interest,” said Matt. “Everyone would probably be happier!” I thought about this for a moment. That couldn’t possibly be right. If people just did whatever they wanted to, then where would society be? Cooperation is of the utmost importance when discovering solutions to societal problems. Steve Jobs got the graphical user interface idea from a visit to the company Xerox. James Watson and Francis Crick worked together to identify the double-helix model of DNA using data from Rosalind Franklin. All the discoveries and inventions in the world have built on the intuition and research of others. If we abandon this cooperation, then how can society progress? I argued to Matt that human civilization progresses when people possess a mindset of cooperation but regresses when people put their self-interests ahead of the welfare of others.

Stevenson Building – Nashville, TN – Almost done. As I finished washing off my beakers, graduated cylinders, and test tubes, I overheard three girls talking to our chemistry lab TA. “We don’t actually have to measure the volume of the room right?” asked one of the girls. Upon hearing this, I smiled. Of course, nobody wants to take rulers and measure the length, width, and height of the room. Most people would rather wait for someone else to do it for them. “They probably did all their calculations first in hopes of someone else measuring the room,” I thought to myself. Reluctantly, the girls began to measure the room’s dimensions with the three available meter sticks as I began my own calculations. In the middle of determining the length of the room, the girls were asked if they needed any help by another classmate. Since there were only three meter-sticks, they declined any help. I finished half of my calculations, and the girls finished measuring the volume of the room. A few minutes later, I heard someone say with disbelief, “Are you serious?” Another person had asked the TA for the value that the three girls had calculated, but the TA told her that they didn’t want to share the information. Tension filled the room. The three girls finished the rest of their calculations as the guy who had offered to help began to measure the length of the room. While the three girls quickly walked out of the lab, everyone else helped measure the room’s width and height. The glares pointed at the girls’ backs were as sharp as knives.

Salem Middle School – Cary, NC – Before the vaccine existed, polio had devastated many families. That’s what I learned in school today in Social Studies. Polio epidemics ravaged populations and severely affected young children. After thousands of years of polio’s reign of terror, a hero vanquished it forever. Jonas Salk – the hero of this story – developed the first polio vaccine and rid most of the world of the disease.  Salk could have made billions from patenting this incredible advancement. However, when asked who owned the patent on the vaccine, Salk answered, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Matt’s House – Boise, ID – After we had tired ourselves from arguing our contrasting perspectives, we agreed that we were both partially right. Matt conceded that society’s growth would be hindered if the pervading societal mindset were such that all original ideas and works were not to be shared. Without any cooperation and a certain amount of benevolence, the current state of humanity would atrophy. I agreed that one’s own self-interest should be more important than helping other people when one’s quality of life would decline as a result. An impoverished man with two kids shouldn’t have to donate his earnings to a charity to help others instead of feeding his two children. As such, we decided that as long as cooperation is not actively hurting anyone, it is the best course of action. In the midst of our discussion, we had forgotten about our homework that was due the next day. As we resumed our homework, Matt asked, “I don’t understand this problem, could you go through it?” A second passed as I thought about it, and then I answered, “Of course.”

 

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Be There While You Can

In the final year of high school, most students want to get away from home. They want to experience something completely new, and the thought of being independent is exciting. And maybe they feel restricted at home, so they crave for all the college freedom that they hear of and see in movies, books, and from older friends. That was me in my final year of high school. I was tired of what seemed to be the same old thing every day, and I couldn’t wait to get away. But it was only after some distance that I started to understand my parents and feel a sense of loss and regret for my aloof relationship with them.

Back then, all my mother seemed to do was nag; she would spend hours doing research on colleges and finding out which ones had the highest rankings, which ones had the best programs, which ones would give me the highest chance of getting into medical school. She would wake me up at five in the morning because she suddenly felt anxious and would spend the morning frantically asking if I even wanted to go to college. When she started to cry over the B’s I had in two of my classes, I was so shocked that I didn’t even try to make her feel better like I should have. In the moment all I felt was anger and frustration; of course I wanted to go to college. It was my future, and I was worried sick and regretful of my less-than-stellar grades. I understood that she wanted the best for me, but it didn’t make sense to me why she seemed to care more than I did.

My younger sister, a straight-A student who’s currently at the top of her class, also cried over my grades: “Christina, you have so many B’s. Aren’t you scared for your future?” she asked me tearfully. And my father didn’t seem to care much until the end, when I got rejected or waitlisted from Ivy League schools. It all made me feel like shit to be honest. So I did my best to tune everyone out; I would go straight to my room after dinner, saying I had things to do, while the rest of my family would spend time together. I wasn’t allowed to spend time with friends, I didn’t have texting, and most social networking sites were blocked at my house, so I would find proxies and keep in contact with friends through email. I grew distant from my family, and I developed the tendency to put other things before them.

Part of it was guilt that made me want to alienate myself. I felt guilty because I knew it was my fault, and I didn’t want to face my family’s disappointment. I had been lazy in high school. But because my parents pushed me so much to go into the medical field, I wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted anymore. I lost motivation just because I felt I was being forced to do everything for them, not for me. It’s one thing to have the freedom to pursue your goals in your own way, and another thing to have people try to pave a particular restricting path for you, even if the general end goal is the same.

Now that I’m in college, everything is on my own shoulders. I have to decide on my own to study ahead of time for exams, to speak to professors outside of class, to participate in extracurricular activities. But it’s nice because it has helped me realize what I do really want to do with my life, without the influence of others. I regained my motivation because I was able to do things my own way, and I’ve enjoyed it.

I didn’t call my family for a while, until my mother called me one weekend. She didn’t really say much, and it felt kind of awkward, but she told me she wanted me to call her more often. Her voice broke a little—or maybe it was just the phone static. Either way, her words made my heart ache. What hit me the most was when she told me she knew I would do well by myself. I suddenly understood; despite her constant control, my mother had acknowledged that I could do things my own way. She had put so much effort into my academics because she wanted so badly for me to get into a “good” college so that I could build my foundation in an environment that would be most beneficial for me. And now, when I was away in college, was when she needed company most; my sister was already accepted into colleges and finishing up high school, and my dad worked 9 hours away from home, so my mother was always home alone. I wanted to be there for her, for everyone, and I regretted I hadn’t done so before.

When I left for college, I never thought I would miss home. But I learned through my experience that it really is true that you only realize what you’ve got when you lose it, even temporarily. I miss the dynamics and feeling of being at home, surrounded by people who care so much. I know when I go home now, I’ll be a lot more grateful than I used to be.

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An Unconventional Adventure

It was always like an adventure to me. Full cabinets, one after another, like lines of caves waiting for me to explore within. An abundance of bottles lining the benches like diamonds longing to be mined and released from entrapment. Unfamiliar contraptions like wild beasts waiting to be brought to life and tamed. There, I had a foreign world at my fingertips, beckoning for me to take part of the greatest ventures. And I obliged.

As a child, I embarked on this wonderful journey full of discovery and novelty and through it I found much more than I ever could have hoped for. This journey unconventionally taught me more through observation and the act of doing than through the end result of any of my quests; it taught me how to be a successful person, not just a prosperous explorer. But it also gave me an arsenal of skills and ways of thinking that would prove essential for most of my adult life. I quickly learned that precision was essential. I could calculate every intention, every tool, and every movement to the finest detail. Yet, one slightly-off sleight of hand or one delayed action could eliminate any remnant of even the most perfect calculation. I ultimately concluded that to venture in any quest I must go forth with all the right intentions and act according to the greater picture.

It also became apparent to me that no quest could be guaranteed to be conquered instantaneously. It would take multiple attempts, hundreds of repetitions of the same movements and processes to triumph. In the end I had learned that each adventure must be taken with ambition and perseverance because no pursuit was an easy task. However, more importantly I knew that I must abandon the notion of instant gratification with which my generation is so closely associated and learn to see the long-term implications of my work. If I went through the motions hundreds of times before getting my intended result, it was to be expected. If I conquered it on my first try, it was a lucky shot. These so-called commandments that developed painstakingly from my years of exploring my foreign world began to shape me as a person far beyond the realm I was contained within.

My adventure was a childhood full of science, growing up exposed to an array of UChicago’s medical research labs. It was in these labs that I spent hours watching my parents and grandparents perform experiment after experiment, pulling treasures from my undiscovered caves, utilizing my diamonds-in-the-rough, and taming my wild beasts. Side-by-side with my researchers, I’d fill ELISA plates with colored dyes and test tubes with powdered milk. Though I wasn’t actually accomplishing anything scientific, I loved my time in the labs. For as long as I can remember, we all spent so much time there that my family’s colleagues would jokingly call me a test-tube baby, claiming that with all that time in the labs I must have been created artificially by my scientist parents. However, jokes aside, it was this childhood, filled with the wonders of scientific research, that shaped me into a person with persistence, excitement, and curiosity.

Though I never knew it at the time, it was my childhood pastime that led me to my desire of entering science and engaging in medical research—this collection of memories that eventually led me to my dream of becoming a doctor. When I entered my high school years and performed this research myself (with real proteins and antibodies instead of just dyes), I discovered the true beauty of making scientific discoveries and the implications they would leave within (or is it upon? They both sounded a little awkward to me) society. And now, as someone who is halfway done with her college experience, I chuckle at the complaints of my classmates scrambling for lab science credit requirements, a feeling I have never known.

Looking back on it now, I realize my appreciation for science was cultivated long before I even really understood the facts behind the experiment. It took years for me to fully embrace my quest and forge my own way through the tangles of unfamiliar language and unrecognizable inhabitants of this other world. This that began as a whimsical compliance to the adventures that awaited me transformed into a childhood of fascination and growth and ultimately made way for a future of learning and discovery.

 

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The Quest for Perfection

Being perfect isn’t everything.

11th Grade: I was lying on the floor of my bedroom sobbing. The carpet beneath my cheek was sodden, but I couldn’t find the energy lift my head, let alone trod over to the computer to start the task that was causing me such anxiety. It was just a paper. I knew that. Rationally, I knew this ten-page document wouldn’t make or break my future. I didn’t even want to go into history and I couldn’t care less about media during the Vietnam War. Really the only thing riding on these 4000 words was a grade. But therein lay the problem.

 

8th Grade: I panicked. My soccer coach invited a few rising freshman to accompany the Varsity team to Spain. We were supposed to train all summer so we could “keep up”. I would like to add that my coach was very British, so every thing he said came off as incredibly mean. He could make puppies playing in a field sound menacing. It didn’t help that he was, in fact, mean. Maybe mean isn’t the right word. Let’s say harsh. He made sure you knew if you did anything wrong. Anything. Anyway, this training regimen he expected us to do included things like running two miles in twelve minutes and sprinting twenty lengths of the field without stopping. I don’t know which scared me more: the actual training part or his reaction if I wasn’t up to par.

To make things worse, I spent that entire summer in Canada. It’s generous to call my house in Canada a house at all. It’s more like a summer cottage situated jauntily on a rocky island in the middle of Lake Huron. You have to take a boat to get there. Needless to say, there were no weights, no tracks, and certainly no soccer fields. But I had to train. I had to be perfect.

I spent two hours in full on panic mode when I received the email with the training exercises. I didn’t understand about 50% of the words and knew how to do only about 35% of the words I actually did comprehend. I frantically called our school trainer and wasted three hours of his time while he walked through each and every exercise with me. It didn’t help. The sheer amount of things my coach expected us to do was overwhelming. And nauseating. And exhausting.

I spent that entire summer before we left for Spain constantly stressed and sore. I realized I can’t run two miles in twelve minutes. One time I got to 1.8 miles before my legs simply refused to move. I didn’t get close to perfection. I wasn’t even within reach.

 

9th Grade: I called my voice teacher the day before the recital I had been working towards for the past three months. I had rehearsed Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” relentlessly until even my dog slowly backed out of the room upon hearing the opening chords. I knew every line. Every chord. Every transition. I had even picked out the perfect “rock star” outfit (which to my ninth grade self was a tank top from Victoria’s Secret—I wish I knew what I was thinking). But it wasn’t right.

I cancelled. I told Mrs. Endicott I had the flu. Or strep. I don’t remember, but I must’ve been convincing because it worked. She told me to drink tea and hung up. The wash of relief that bombarded me was indescribable. I had avoided any potential embarrassment that would result from not living up to expectations.

It took me years to realize that focusing on being perfect was actually bringing about opposite results. The pressure I put on myself crushed any potential enjoyment I could have gotten from learning new history, training for soccer, and performing my song. Eventually I wrote that essay and turned it in, dreading the day I would get it back. Not once did I feel an ounce of pride for conducting months of research and compiling it into a readable (I hope) document. I spent my entire time in Spain worrying that my training was not enough. I never took a second to appreciate the beauty of Barcelona and the delicious street crepes. I never got the opportunity to perform the song I worked so hard on.

Being perfect seems like everything. It seems like if you mess up, your whole future will crumble ahead of you. But would you rather have a future with a few cracks or a completely blank past?

 

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Playing for Ruth

Tonight, the lights turn back on. Due to complaints from the surrounding residents, the lights have been off for months, preventing me, and other aspiring players, from practicing late into the night. But tonight, I swing the club with joy, flying the ball into the illuminated driving range, ecstatic for the golf course, because the nighttime revenue is one of the sources that keeps the course alive.

When most people think of golf courses, they picture pristine conditions, freshly manicured greens, and tee boxes with fantastic views. I did not grow up playing golf at one of those courses.

I grew up playing at Ruth Park, a public nine-hole course in an urban area of Saint Louis struggling to maintain its grounds and replenish its supplies. My home course is Ruth Park. The disintegrating cart path rolling over leaf-covered hills, the third green truncated by a fence so the long shots don’t soar into the busy street, the sand traps void of sand— all present quirky challenges that I love to face every time I play. To me, this course has character. After a while, the lavish courses all start to look the same.

But it is not just the physical attributes of Ruth Park that keep me playing. It is the unexpected family I have found in the clubhouse. The guys who run the golf course come from backgrounds much different from mine, yet we have formed a genuine bond. When I first started playing at Ruth Park, I was nervous because there are not many teenage girls who play there. Before I knew it, I was on a first-name basis with the guys in the clubhouse, and they were letting me play the course whenever I wanted, giving me lessons, and genuinely interested in my challenges and triumphs. I have found a strong support system at Ruth Park that I truly believe exists only there. They were the ones I went to in tears when I didn’t qualify for the state tournament my freshmen year, but were also the ones to share my joy after I medaled my junior year. One of my biggest challenges was not being able to break ninety in a tournament. I finally did in the district match, and the first thing I did was hop in my car and take my second-place medal to the clubhouse. “Girl, you didn’t just break ninety, you shattered it!” Cory told me as I celebrated with my own personal fan club.

I would not give up my unique family at Ruth Park for any prestigious country club. Doug is the respected head pro, who always offers his wisdom and advice. Cory knows if he tries to teach me how to chip, I am most likely going to roll my eyes. And Richard is ever inspiring and always hilarious, making me feel better after a tournament that didn’t go well or making me feel like the greatest golfer in the world after a minor victory.

When I first started playing at the course, never did I think that so many years later I would be rejoicing about something as simple as the lights shining on the driving range at night. But the course has become one of my favorite places in the world. The people who work the course have become my instructors, my mentors, my fan club, and my family, so when I play golf I don’t just play for myself, I play for Ruth Park as well.

 

Hey guys so if you want to comment on my essay, here is what I’m struggling with:

  1. I don’t know how to get across my thesis/I’m not 100% sure what I’m arguing. I guess just that you don’t need to belong to a fancy golf club to play and/or really love it. Do I need a sentence that clearly states that?
  2. If I do need to clearly state my thesis, do I also need to argue an opposing side?
  3. Also, are my transitions weird?

 

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Hypnotized

Drama has never been a missing component of my life. I have, among other similar experiences, had my teeth pulled out without any numbing, been knocked unconscious as a result of falling off of a high chair, and been so angry as to decide to bite my annoying 10-year old cousin in the arm. However, this personal narrative is about none of these. This personal narrative is going to be about hypnosis – because hypnosis is the most useless thing I have ever done. At least, in the conventional sense, it is useless. In the “unconventional” sense, hypnosis changed my life in three ways – which are what this paper is really about.

First, some background information. The reason why I underwent five sessions of hypnosis was because I wanted to “fix” my life. My life was skating, and skating wasn’t going very well. Particularly, I was under a lot of pressure to learn a new jump – which was the double axel, and I was afraid. Very afraid. The first time I tried it, I fell so hard that I could hear echoes. The second time I tried it, I’m pretty sure my body made a kind of “splat” sound upon hitting the ice, virtually sideways. Well that only continued on and on. I was going slower and slower into the jump until I was virtually standing still in one spot and trying to get myself to spin around in the air two and a half times. I was so scared that I would start to skate around in little circles for fifteen minutes at a time before building up the nerve to attempt the jump. I probably looked like a crazy person, which is most likely why my coaches decided that I needed to try hypnosis. They thought that that would somehow fix me, and that upon emerging from this magical trance, I would somehow land the double axel and win the Olympics all at once. My parents, on the other hand, were not happy.

My parent’s unhappiness, is what leads to the first thing I learned from hypnosis. I learned that there are people who believe in you, and there are people who pretend to believe in you but don’t really. My coaches did not believe in me. Maybe they thought I had talent, or maybe they were just desperate – I don’t really know. Either way, they didn’t believe in my character – that I had the character to stop going into panic mode every time I heard the word “double axel”. I guess it must have seemed like my personal growth wouldn’t happen fast enough, and that hypnosis would be just a perfect substitute.  But my parents had faith in me. My parents believed that my fear of jumping and falling was something that I could overcome on my own. They knew it was going to take time. They were ready for the long practice sessions that would include copious amounts of crying and Russian accented yelling from my coaches. They were prepared that I would, after those practice sessions, go to my room and start throwing things, and then go into the kitchen and start throwing things there too. My parents knew it was all part of the process. They knew that one of two things was going to happen: I was going to somehow overcome my fear and land the jump, or I was going to continue to afraid and never land it. I think they realized that either way, I would learn a lot, which was what really mattered.

The second thing I learned from hypnosis was a result of the first. I was naïve. I thought there was some kind of quick fix, some magic fairy that would make all of my dreams come true. And, I was narrow-minded – I believed that skating was the only thing in my life that was important. My parents gave into me at some point, because they saw how badly I wanted to try, and probably because they figured that the failure of this hypnosis would serve as some sort of lesson. I sat there in the hypnotist’s office. The office was in her house and she had a cat that attacked me when I walked through the door. Anyways, I sat there, on the couch, in the dark while she started talking really softly and slowly. When I think about the whole ordeal it seems funny, but I took it very seriously back then. I had my hands on my lap, because she said she needed to see whether my fingers were twitching, and I just sat, trying to fall into a deep sleep, while her cat made meowing sounds outside and the hypnotist continued to talk. Nothing had changed in my skating the next day. No change the day after. No change after a month of hypnosis. I listened to her recording every night until I fell asleep, but no change. Nothing changed at all in my skating. Only my confidence, which plummeted into the depths. That’s when I realized the naivety. That’s when I realized that maybe my parents do want the best for me, and maybe I should listen once in a while, because they have years of life experience that I don’t have. All of the struggles I had with this one jump, I can feel good about now. It is because of the struggles that I push through those “double axel” moments in my school work. Last semester it was a term paper – which left me with one of the most severe cases of writers block. But I sat on butt and stopped looking at the clock. I thought and thought, and probably thought some more, and finished the paper. It was nothing more. It was persistence, and mental exhaustion. No magic, just good old persistence. That’s what my parents knew when they initially refused to let me try hypnosis. Why bother when there is so much more in life that you can get from struggling with a double axel, than actually landing it?

The first time I landed my double axel, I was practicing by myself, in an isolated rink. My coaches weren’t there. They didn’t see it, and I was never able to repeat it in front of them. We don’t talk about the hypnosis stuff anymore, because I think it drove a wedge between my coaches and my parents. I think it drove a wedge between my coaches and I as well. But regardless, hypnosis did give me something. I learned to appreciate my parents for their faith in me and my character. I felt almost as though they had proven to me that their confidence in me was real, not superficial, not just there to get me to achieve what they wanted. I also learned things about myself. I realized how childlike and naïve I had been. I realized how silly it was of me to think that hypnosis would make my whole life perfect just by helping me land a single jump.

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The Worst Day of My Life

“Act like everything fine and if it isn’t, we ain’t lettin’ anybody in our family business”

Kanye West, Family Business

 

As I walked out of class, the screen of my phone showed two missed calls from Mom. This was unusual since my Mom always knows my class schedule by heart and never calls when she knows I’m busy. I tried not to jump to any conclusions, but worry began to grow in the pit of my stomach. The moment I got outside I called back, but I couldn’t discern much from her tone as she told me she was putting my Dad on the phone. That worry turned to fear as I listened to my father struggle for words. Tears swelled in my eyes and streamed down my face as I dreaded to hear what he could not say.

I really hope I never experience what it’s like to get shot in the chest, but after that moment I think I have a pretty good idea of how it would feel. I fell to my knees and I cried loud and hard. Must have been quite a scene in the middle of a crowded campus, as a number of sympathetic passerby asked if I was OK. I thought, for the first time in my life, that the answer was no. I have never felt so far from home as I did in that moment, and I have never known a greater pain than the pain that I felt in that moment. It was just after twelve noon on Thursday, January 17th, 2013, and my Grandpa had died unexpectedly at the age of 76 just minutes before.

The eight hours between that moment and the moment I saw my Dad at LaGuardia Airport in New York remain unparalleled as the longest and worst of my life. Not a tear was shed nor a word uttered as we embraced amidst a crowd of hurried travelers. I knew the worst was behind us now that we were together, and I know that he felt that too. Even though I know that there was nothing I could have done, it remains the heaviest regret of my life that I was not there with him and the rest of my family that day. As we drove from the airport to my Grandma’s house, my Dad said, “before today, the worst day of my life was when Reggie (our beautiful twelve-year-old Akita) died”. I managed a short laugh as I thought to myself that it was the worst day of my life, too.

I’m not sure if irony is the right word, but the moment I walked inside to see my Grandma, my Mom, and my brother may have been the happiest moment of my life. The pain of being away from them for that time hurt me more maybe even than our loss itself, but when I saw their faces, eyes red with dried tears, that pain was gone in an instant. My Grandpa was always happiest when my whole family was together. I think it took me until that day to realize that those times are when I am happiest, too. I remember him best at the head of a long dinner table, laughing with his wife to his right, and his sons, their wives whom he loved as dearly as he would his own daughters, and his grandchildren all around. We have and will continue to sit at that table together, and even though he is gone, he is always there with us.

I did not choose to write this essay to write a sob story, though I may have shed a tear or two in the process. Everyone dies. Personally, I opt not to concern myself too much with what happens after that, for any idea I have ever had about fulfillment or joy after death pales in comparison to the fulfillment and joy in a life lived the way my Grandpa did his. I apologize for any sadness I may have caused with these words and my own sadness in them. Like I said, I didn’t mean for this to be a sob story. I meant it as a reminder and a personal testament to the fact that family is not the thing that matters most, it is the only thing that matters. Trust me.

 

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Concussions

I will never forget May 3rd, 2011; but I can barely remember anything that happened.  My life was turned upside down: no activity, no music, no computer, and tons of mandatory sleep.  I received my 6th concussion on May 3, 2011, to be followed by my 7th a week later.  I had constant headaches for over two years as a result of post concussion syndrome, yet managed to learn many valuable life lessons from an otherwise awful experience.  Here is how the last three years of my life have been:

 

Day 1: May 3rd, 2011 Lacrosse State Quarterfinals

Junior year.  Starting in the biggest game of the season, college coaches in the stands, and playing our biggest rivals for a chance at the state semi-finals. All I can remember is getting the ball in the first quarter, then blacking-in with a few teammates around me.  Apparently I scored.  Apparently I had 2 goals and an assist and apparently our team won the game.  But I don’t remember.

 

Day 7: May 10th, 2011 Lacrosse State Championship

Something was different. No, it wasn’t; I told myself I was fine.  I’d had headaches before, and this was nothing new.  The athletic trainer had me sit out of practice for a couple days, but we were playing for the state-championship; and winning is everything.  So obviously I told my athletic trainers my head was fine.  And obviously my coach wanted me to play.  So, as any other athlete would, I played. BAM. Concussion number 7.

Day 127: September 7th, 2011

Beginning of my senior year.  The year that every single kid looks forward to, where the hard work from junior year pays off.  But instead of the best year of high school, my senior year was plagued by terrible headaches, Every. Single. Day. Everything I had looked foreword to as a senior: gone.  It only took two weeks of school before I was removed and homeschooled because I couldn’t handle all the academic work; let alone the noise and light.  If I were feeling GREAT, I mean truly AMAZING, then I would try and go on a 10-minute walk.  Other than that the only time I left my house was for the countless doctor appointments.  But lets fast-forward a bit…

Day 1,076: Today

Yes, today is day number one thousand and seventy six.  In other words, that is 15% of my life up to this point, every day affected by my one decision made three years ago.  While I stopped getting daily headaches summer of 2013, it is not uncommon for me to get severe headaches 4 or 5 days of the week to this day.  On the bright side, I gained a superpower as I can now tell when it is going to rain because the change in pressure gives me a headache that barely lets me get out of bed.

While this brief narrative of the past three years of my life may seem depressing, there are several lessons to be gained from my experience. Most importantly: if you get hit in the head, no matter what, stop what you’re doing.  Don’t try and be the tough person and ignore a headache.  It’s as simple as that. I personally put all the blame on myself for trying to play so soon after a concussion and knowing that I still had headaches.  But I was a young high school kid.  How was I— or anyone else— supposed to know what could happen to me?  Athletic trainers as well as coaches also have an obligation to realize that there are bigger things at stake than winning a game.  Also, as much as coaches want to trust players, we are just kids who will lie and do what ever it takes to play because it is often harder to see the bigger picture of health issues as a kid.

I am not a very religious person by nature, but sometime during my homeschooled senior year my dad showed me this saying, “Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can.”  This really spoke to me, as I was constantly getting angry and depressed when homeschooled.  However, I now realize that there are many things in life that are simply out of our control, and as cliché as it may sound, there really is no point in stressing over them.  Beyond the importance of spreading the word of head injuries, I believe that this is one of the most important lessons I can share from my experience.

At one point, I thought that my concussion was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.  But I hope that through my experiences I am able to help other people that go through similar experiences as me.  One of the scariest parts of having post concussion syndrome is that very few people understand what is happening to them.  Further, with a concussion there are no visible injuries such as with a broken arm.  Because of this, nobody can really see what is wrong with you and thinks you are making symptoms up.  I found that nobody except others going through similar experiences could understand what it is like to have to sit in a dark room for hours to try and feel normal.  I now meet with anyone I hear of going through similar experiences to me, as the most therapeutic and comforting medicine I have discovered is knowing you are not alone.  Spreading awareness of post concussion syndrome will help people in knowing they are not alone, rather there are many other people just as lost and confused looking for the same medical solutions that unfortunately don’t exist yet.

 

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