Memoir in a memoir

Lessons Can Teach Great Things

In my junior year at my Private Catholic high school, Mount Saint Charles, I was given a very difficult task that took me several months to complete and perfect; little did I know that it would alter the way I looked upon my own life. Upon being given this assignment my mind was going crazy with ideas and I had to write them all down before I forgot them as usual. After days of thinking during my other classes, when I could no longer think of anything to write about I looked back upon the page filled with ideas upon ideas of ideas and then came the most difficult task; choosing what topic to write about. After finally narrowing the topics down to three ideas I asked my friends and entire family what they felt would work the best. I then proceeded to ask every English teacher that I have had in my past as well what topic they felt would create the perfect essay. After a month of numerous drafts, editing, rewriting and nagging my English teachers to review it, I finally was happy with the final product. When I was done one of my English teachers kept insisting that I use a different topic but I choose to ignore them and do what I felt best. In the end I wrote what I believed was my best essay, not to mention that it was my college essay.

In my first paragraph of my college essay I started off with “There I sat in my middle school’s principal’s office waiting for my parents to arrive. Expecting the worst, I knew I was going to get in trouble for what I had done.” If this introduction was read by itself then a reader would think I did something bad, however, it’s the opposite. The reason I was in the principal's office was because my friend was being bullied and laughed at because he farted in class. I then tried to make the bully stop by asking him politely but then he tried pushing me so I pushed him back and he fell on his butt. Now that I reflect on what happened I realized that not only was I a good friend but I stood up for people when I felt it was needed. My mom even mentioned how in pre-school I did the same even if I didn’t know them; I just did what I felt was right.

My second and third paragraph narrated my reckless and risky moments of my life such as calling my middle school and impersonating my dad, trying to call in sick so I could hang out with one of my friends. The third paragraph then continued to narrate me in my biking era when I built a ramp to go down and get speed, proceeding to jump off another ramp, falling on my back with the bike landing on top of me. Both of these accounts display that yes, I take risks, however, I learned lessons from them. We never know our limits until we push them and both instances display me doing exactly that. Many people in today's world are too afraid to make their own decision. They go with the flow and don’t take any risks because they're afraid of the consequences if the situation turns bad and not in their favor. Even though the consequences may be good or bad, we will all learn lessons from them; such as I did.

While I was writing my essay I learned many things about myself; not only did I feel the need to stand up for my friends but I also learned that I can be quite reckless. Many people may consider being reckless bad but in this case it’s good. Take for example, my college essay; I took a risk of ignoring what one of my teachers said and did what I felt best. In the end I am now in the college that I wanted to go to and I couldn’t be any happier; I made the right choice and the risk was well worth it.

After writing this college essay I not only realized how easy it is to get help when it comes to writing essays, but it also helped me learn how to write anything in general and keep the reader engaged. In the end I not only learned more about myself but also learned how to properly write an engaging essay. In this case I learned how to keep an essay flowing from paragraph into paragraph, how to incorporate humor, brainstorm ideas, and find out what kind of person I truly am.