Digital Story – Rough Draft #2

Throughout my entire life, I never imagined I would be a smoker. The concept completely revolted me. But, day by day, as soon as I entered UMBC, I became to susceptible to the sweet release granted by nicotine. From October 2007 and onward, I have smoked, roughly, a pack of cigarettes a day. Although I know that this habit has serious health consequences, I’ve always fallen back into the mold of smoking after quitting. I feel as if this is due to me cultivating the places I associate with smoking. The 7/11 on Fredrick Road, the Royal Farms on Wilkens, The balcony outside of Chesapeake, my westhill apartment, my Walker apartment, the nook outside of the fine arts building, under my balcony at home, inside my garage, my Dad’s house. These are all places that I intrinsically link with the act of smoking cigarettes and that’s part of the reason I have so much trouble quitting. If I quit, my preservation of these places was for naught. I’ll never go to these places again and never experience the rush of memories and feelings that I’m so accustomed to. If I want to quit, I need to remove these places from my consious and forge new places, new memories, and cultivate something different. Something New.  Why Do I smoke? Because I’m addicted. But I also smoke because it’s a link to my past, it’s a link to good memories and I don’t want to lose those. But I kind of do, because one place is truly like the rest. The 7/11 is like a lot of convience stores, the outside of one building is a lot like the outside of another. The only unique definition I put on these places that cultivates them is my own. But it’s my definition.

Point: Cultivating and Preserving Places is typically a good experience, but for me, its negative.

Word Count: 299

 

The Best equals the Worst

I’ve been incredibly lucky throughout my educational experiences. The defining moment in my educational career wasn’t winning the 2nd grade spelling B or getting into college or that research project targeting hunger in college students, its been my ability to fight deadlines in college with great success (Best) and the cataclysmic failure that surrounds a missed deadline (Worst)

My “best” education experience occurs when I’m able to meet a deadline within minutes of it being due. The rush exhilarates me and like many others, I’m able to produce my best work at deadlines. I say this now, but honestly, I know it’s a lie. I know and understand that editing is such an important process of writing but when I finish a project right before its due, I’m on such a high that I can’t be brought down. I’ve beaten the system. I feel as if I can take on the educational world and the wind is at my back. This has happened many different times over my college career but each time, I learn something new about myself which adds to the process.
On the other hand, my worst educational experience is when I miss my deadline, do poorly on the paper, and am forced to admit defeat. Defeat is such a strong word, but its categorizes my feelings very well. My enemy is the deadline and I lost to it. HE won. HE got the best of me and I only have myself to blame. I full my mind with second guesses and coulda, woulda, shouldas. It’s the worst but its part of the risk I take. I know these educational experiences are very atypical from the “standard” answer but they’ve taught me more about myself and what I’m capable of  than any textbook ever could.