Critique my essay

CC_Admin
Wed, 27 Oct 2004 00:01:39 +0000

OK, now I just need to shorten my essay, and I think Ill be done. I need to lose around 75 words to get my count to 625. Any grammatical suggestions are appreciated as well. btw, I decided not to include number theory or anything like that (i think it would seem out of place). Here’s the slightly modified version:

Tight corner ahead. I lean left and apply the brakes just enough to make the turn. My friends, beside me, pedal furiously in an attempt to reach the bottom first. I know I can beat them. I pedal harder, but suddenly, I find myself unable to move. I look down, expecting to see my bike. In its place, I find a green stretcher. My legs are covered in cuts and bruises; my head is caked in blood. “You’re really lucky to be alive.” The words of the paramedic on my right.
What happened? Did I crash? An hour later, I got my answer. I had received a severe concussion, but not while biking. Apparently, my friends and I decided to go rock climbing upon reaching the bottom of the mountain (I’m told I lost the race down). During the climb I slipped, leaving me to fall fifteen feet and roll thirty more down the side of the mountain. Fortunately, my plunge was broken when my body smashed into a stump. I’ve always been lucky like that. As a result, the neurosurgeon told me, I would suffer memory loss for the next nine months.
My peers thought I was pretty lucky to get off with nothing more than a few cuts and a “bumped head,” but as a junior only a week into the school year, I felt anything but fortunate. I constantly forgot what class I was in. I couldn’t remember my teachers’ names. Even worse, I was horrified one night to learn that I didn’t even remember where the dinner plates were kept. I needed to regain control over my life. How? By turning the doctor’s prognosis into a challenge. I vowed to regain my memory not in nine months, but in a mere three.
Of course, how to achieve this was an entirely different matter. How does one recall one’s memory? A seemingly paradoxical question. So, like any self-respecting nerd in times of trouble, I turned to math. My solution: a hobby taken up by geeks since the Big Bang itself. I would memorize the digits of pi.
At first, the going was relentlessly slow. I spent hours attempting to remember a cluster of just ten digits. Three-point-one-four-one-five-nine-two…nothing. My mind went blank. I would try again. Still nothing. For the moment, it seemed as if the doctor would be right after all.
_But my own doubt made me try even harder. Every second of my free time was devoted to pi, essentially isolating me from the outside world. I stayed up late into the night, slowly repeating the numbers that appeared on my electronic organizer. I’d wake up early the next morning, fearful that I had forgotten the previous night’s work. But in the end, the sleep deprivation was worth it. Within a few weeks’ time, I noticed a slight improvement. I could now memorize ten digits in single sitting, not phenomenal by any means, but a sure sign of progress. Bolstered by my meager success, I persisted in my routine. The weeks flew by. At the end of the first month, I reached the 100-digit mark. I could sense my memory slowly returning. In school, I was less hesitant to ask a question, fearful that it had already been answered. I could actually remember the names of all my teachers. But I wasn’t finished yet. 200 digits. 300. 400. My friends thought I was crazy, but I knew better. No longer did I have to mutter things to myself to remember them. More importantly, though, I now remembered where the dinner plates were kept. I was on top of the world, and just in time. The three months were up.
_______I continued my memorization of pi for several more weeks. However, like most good things, excess breeds tedium. Somehow, when one knows 600+ digits of a number, one tends to lose interest in pursuing the number further. Simply put, I became bored with pi after memorizing 631 digits. But I know that memorizing pi has had a significant influence on my life, one that reaches beyond the regurgitation of a sequence of numbers. If nothing else, it has taught me that with enough time and effort, even a simple number can heal a battered brain.

Thanks a lot everyone for the help. What would I ever do without you? Cheers.