Can't think of a good title for this
In this post I'm going to let you know what I've been up to lately and also share my very personal essay with you all. Hope you enjoy it.
I haven't really been posting since I got to Russia. I've been having a lot of family stuff going on. My grand-aunt died. She's had cancer for like the past 5 years or something and she just happened to die like two weeks or so after I got to Russia. I never knew her that well, but it was made clear to me that if I didn't go to the funeral, that would be considered betrayal by my family. I went. The fact that my grand-aunt was dead didn't bother me that much, but hearing my grandma reminisce and cry about my dead grand-aunt made me extremely sad. I've always been very close to my grandma, and seeing like that almost made me cry.
Most of my time is currently spent having relatives come over and stay over and tell them about Olga and I. That's been nice at first, but then it got fairly annoying. It seems like it's now finally dying down and I'm slowly becoming old news and finally getting a chance to get something done.
I've been refreshing my math and physics skills a little bit. That's been nice. I've been juggling quite a bit (though not as much as I expected to). My dad goes and tapes some of the things I work on every once in a while. I think he's been putting some of that out on youtube, but I also think he hasn't released a bunch of cool stuff. I'm sure either me or him will put it all out at some point. Sue (Bakalor) suggested I work on my writing skills, so I wrote a 300 word essay the other day in response to the following question I found among college essay topics:
"How would you describe yourself as a human being? What quality do you like best in yourself and what do you like least? What quality would you most like to see flourish and which would you like to see wither?"
If any of you wonder how I answered those, here's my essay:
"There are many qualities to each human being and I am no exception. However, there is one quality to my character that is very important, when attempting to understand who I am. It gets me ahead and sets me back, it hurts and heals, I would like to see it flourish some times and wither at others.
The quality I am talking about is curiosity. Be it science or religion, economics or human relations, AIDS in Africa or genetically engineered crops in developed countries, I’m curious about everything. There are two sides to my curiosity.
On one hand, my curiosity helps me. It makes me acquire knowledge and keeps my world view evolving. My curiosity took me all over the world to Japan, France, Great Britain, Argentina, Israel, Germany and others. It makes me ask “But what if..?” after saying “I understand”. One of the biggest things curiosity has done for me was prompt me to learn about the immigration law of the US, helping my sister and me to leave our family in Russia and get situated here in the United States.
There is a downside to my curiosity though. It motivates me to get into things that are none of my business, many times creating awkward situations and making my life and others more difficult, than they have to be. I am often curious about things that people are hesitant to talk about. One of the more awkward moments caused by my curiosity occurred when I asked my close friend who has been happily married for 37 years if he had ever even considered getting a divorce, in front of his in-laws.
When used correctly, I think curiosity is a great quality. It is what has led humans to where we are at now. I would like to see my curiosity flourish without going overboard and getting into other people’s personal business."
Hope you enjoyed it. Please critique my writing, as it would help me improve it.
Thanks
