My Mind Is Like A Muscle? by alex

My Mind Is Like A Muscle? by alex - August 2013 Scholarship Essay

           When I was a sophomore in high school, I was an average student. Showed glimpses of brilliance on very rare occasions but really didn't care enough and found it too hard at the time to do it on a regular basis.           In my English class I had a professor, Harvard grad, named Mr. Jones. I was basically just the student in the background that passed by unnoticed and I did the minimal amount of work to get by. We had an assignment to write a short story, about two to three pages long. It was a week long assignment and of course, I waited till the last day when Mr. Jones announced "Remember tommorrow you need to hand in your short stories".           I used to daydream alot in my classes and I thought I'll just write a short story on one of my daydreams. I started my story fairly late that night. I wrote down a title and started writing. When I was finished, it was twenty-five hand written pages later and it was three o'clock in the morning. When I read it, I loved my story. I loved it so much, I wanted to rewrite it as neatly as possible( something I never did). I spend the next two hours rewriting my story and finally went to bed at five.          The next day I was excited to go to school and hand in my story. I haven't done this much effort, ever for any of my schoolwork. When we got to class, Mr. Jones gave us a classmate to swap our stories with. We had to bring it home that night, critique it, and hand it in the next day. Everyone had their two to three page short stories. I had my twenty-five page small book. When I gave my lucky, known to be a complainer classmate Andrea, who got assigned to me my twenty-five pages she now has to read overnight and critique it, she was refusing to Mr Jones to take my paper. She said it wasn't fair that everyone had two or three pages to read when she had a whole book. Mr Jones explained to her that it was the luck of the draw.           The next day when we were discussing our critiques in class, Andrea was so excited to speak of my story. She said how great and well written it was. She found my characters interesting and the storyline fascinating. She said she was dreading to start reading it but once she started she couldn't stop reading it till the end.            Most of that class was spent on my story. I was in the spotlight and it felt great. I had eventually gotten an A when it was returned to me a week later but in that class Mr Jones first compared my writing to Kurt Vonnegut and he said something to me that stuck with me till now. He said "The mind is like a muscle, you use it once it gets sore. You use it again, it gets stronger."I didn't quite understand the importance of what he was trying to tell me at the time, but I fully understand it now.           The lesson he taught me in that class was the most important lesson ever taught to me in any class and he left a lasting impression on me that will stick with me for the rest of my life. Thank you Mr Jones.