Mundane Value- by Brianna Reynolds, CA High School Senior by Brianna

Mundane Value- by Brianna Reynolds, CA High School Senior by Brianna - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

To place value in everything. That was my New Year’s resolution. Day after day I am thrown into a six hour work day. Eight to Three. Eight to Three. A pattern that I have been all-to-accustomed to for the past twelve years of my short life. That type of consistent pattern, the type of archetypal life us students can often see as pointlessness.
My New Year’s resolution is to find the art in that pointlessness. To feel the radiation from my Debate teacher’s half worn smile when we cross examine our classmates. To hear the the click clack of shoes and boots as the third period bell tolls. The maternal smell of my Intro to Calculus classroom; warm cinnamon and wet pavement. The choir of car beeps in the front parking lot, doors unlocking as the rush to get home after six hours of being intellectual sponges comes to a close.
Once these mundane occurrences are viewed in a different light, the days grow shorter. Finding solace in the little moments, makes the overall pain of life grow duller.
I am now trying to apply this view to what I am learning. In Biotechnology, when the process of protein making bores me, I will think about how that process, how the ribosomes, and the mitochondria, the cell walls, and all the organelles shape me: Who I am.
When in math, and Integral symbols, delta triangles, endless quadratic graphs clutter my paper. I am following my resolution, when in those lines and curves, I see the art. I see what my teachers have preached to me for so long that it isn’t about what the numerical answer is. It’s that by finding the area under that curve, by calculating how long is takes Sally to make three sandwiches, the correlation between two functions, by finding x, we are learning the value in looking outside ourselves to find something bigger, to find something we didn’t know before.
And that’s the whole point.