"I never had to choose my subject- my subject rather chose me"-Noah Welch

Fears:  Failure

Annoyances:  Extremists (nothing is black or white), pop culture

Accomplishments:  I won a Scholarship to U.K. in 5^th grade, survived in Europe for a week with only one lens in my glasses

Confusions:  Life, politics, people

Sorrows:  extreme sarcasm (not everyone knows when I’m joking)

Dreams:  Design a tower to live in, become a lawyer

Idiosyncrasies: I read history and mythology textbooks for fun.

Risks:  arguing at school

Beloved Possessions, Now and Then: Then my books, now my extended collection of books

Problems:  procrastination, spelling, grammar

        Of all the stories I could tell, my personal favorite is about the time I wandered around Europe for a week without a lens in my glasses.  To understand this story first you must understand how I was given the opportunity to travel to Europe in the first place.

        The summer before my freshman year, I traveled to Europe for two weeks with the People to People Ambassador Program. This program sends students around the world, without their parents. I traveled to several countries in Western Europe ranging from England to the Netherlands. We toured numerous major sites (such as the Tower of London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris) and a number of small areas as well (for instance, a little town in Ireland and the Isle of Wight).

        Our tale of monocular woe begins on the Isle to the south of England. Our group was invited to The Sailing Academy on the Isle of Wight. In the morning our group was divided in two, and we went sailing.  Now I am a reasonably competent sailor, I only flipped the boat over once and that wasn’t even entirely my fault.  I felt relatively good about my day as we pulled in for lunch.  However much to my chagrin I discovered that the afternoon activity was windsurfing. I am a terrible wind surfer.  Anyone who knows me knows that I have a terrible sense of balance and poor hand eye coordination. I spent most of the afternoon falling on my face, but even that wasn’t enough to knock a lens out of my glasses. Unfortunately on my last attempt to even stand on that devilish contraption, I had the misfortune to fall backwards off the board. The frigid waters of the English Channel popped the left lens out of my glasses. Of course I did not consider packing a spare pair of glasses and I had no idea what my prescription was, so I just persevered. I could still see reasonably well and I managed to tough out the last week of my trip.  I can only imagine what the Europeans thought of the tall young American walking around with only one lens in his glasses.

        It might not be a great accomplishment, but how many other people do you know who can claim that they walked around Europe for a week with a half broken pair of glasses?