Carpe Diem: Seize the Day

I would say that I have a white picket fence with lovely barbed wire that is twisted all
around the posts and the planks. I have quirks and a unique temperament after all no two
people are alike. I would not personally call myself a mercurial person, just very
observant and out spoken. However, others who may or may not know me have their own
opinions and quite frankly I don’t care what they think. For I know my flaws and weaknesses,
but also as a person I find that it’s just as important to be aware of one’s strengths.
I suppose that not only myself but other people have only one thing stopping
them from being a successful and that person would be themselves.
Beginning with childhood, I have learned that I have been a rather pessimistic and
withdrawn child. I remember having a strong distain for everyone around me. I was rowdy and
wanted to do what I felt like doing. “Mrs. Cherry, I don’t want to color inside the lines, it’s
boring,” I said to my Kindergarten teacher, who instead of went about her business and let me
continue my “outside the line thinking” she gave me a dirty look, and in turn I stuck my tongue
out at her. Being five, I didn’t realize that sassy girls such as myself would get in trouble for
returning a kind favor of feisty facial features. Though I wasn’t the popular kid in elementary
school with the amazing set of Crayola sixty-four pack of colored crayons but I still had my wit.
In fact I would only talk if spoken to, and if I talked at all I would scare children away with
weird facts I learned from National Geographic magazines, for example: A person can be cut in
half by a quarter if dropped from the empire state building. I would say that I was an awkward
child by the way I spoke, I didn’t speak the ignorant language of elementary children, I spoke as
if I were a forties bombshell. Not to mention while other children watched SpongeBob, I
watched Animal Planet and learned a lot of things that most kids my age would have never knew
unless they were told.
When I was in fourth grade when I wrote a mind blowing story… Well it was to me and not to
mention my fourth grade teacher. As we all know fourth grade teachers are easily impressed. But
besides that I really believe that my fourth grade English teacher helped pry my personality that
was super glued, welded, and paper clipped to the shell that I used to reside in. My other
personality flaw really cracks mirrors, is my judgmental side. I see people as somewhat ignorant,
I thought no one was worth talking to when they weren’t as literate as I was. Once again, I
became that loner, that kid who hung out with the future drop outs and soon-to-be teen age
moms. These people offered no sort of intellectual or social stimulation, in fact I felt as if I were
hanging out with a bunch of mannequins. Then one day, early in my freshman year, I was sitting
in the court yard of Wolfson High. I was talking to a girl about the score I received from a FCAT
writing practice test which was a five out of six. It was along the lines of, playful and envious,
“you try too hard to be the best,” she said. From that point, I realized that I have been wasting
my time with a bunch of losers. I began a sojourn that would take me away from the C-average
mediocrity that I was tempted in, and found my place at a school that offered a different
approach. That school is called Douglas Anderson School of the Arts.

V from the movie V for Vendetta says “Behind this mask there is more than just flesh.
Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof,” this quote is basically the reason
behind the things I write. I believe that being at an art school, ideas are more open to be
expressed, being a writer it is a necessity to know exactly what point you want to make to your
audience even if it’s as simple as “the importance of breathing”. My feelings, ideas, and my
youthful “what if’s” about the world, such as “what if” dragonflies carried fairies on their backs?
Or “what if” there really was a man on the moon? I prefer pondering about the trivialness of
childish ideas, because (as Willy Wonka played by Gene Wilder said) “A little nonsense now
and then, is cherished by the wisest men” which almost correlates with learning from one’s
mistakes.
I’m young and still learning about my strengths and how to be a successful
person. I’m sure by the time I turn into an old cat-lady I will still have a million obstacles
in my way, from the wet floor sign that prevents my Hove-a-round from speeding down the pet
aisle and grabbing the last Fancy feast, to the manipulative eyes of a girl scout who wants to sell
her Samoa’s. I am my own problem solver to navigate around the obstacles I may face, and
hopefully others will find out how to do so as well.