<p>*Because it is so highly personalized, and therefore an unlikely target for anyone looking to score a free essay, I am just going to post it here, if that’s OK.</p>
<p>Question; commonapp says minimum 250 words. Is 1,000 too much? It’s only a page and a half, single spaced…*</p>
<p>I’m keeping a keen eye out for any possible opportunity. Someone knocks; before Miss Swope is halfway to the door I’m at the chalkboard, two seconds later I’m back in my seat, a silky pile of chalk dust cupped in each hand. Miss Swope returns to the equation on the board; I can do it backwards, blindfolded. She knows it. I completed every assignment in the textbook before the first quarter was over, following no rules but my own, delighting in the author’s misinterpretation of textbook as puzzle book. If only he had written all my textbooks. I ignore the squeaking chalk, grinning a secret grin while I rub my palms together, as Miss Swope continues her droning explanation of each minute, unnecessary step. She turns back to the board – I strike. The boy in front of me yelps as I giggle at my handiwork on the back of his navy sweater. Miss Swope says my name, instinctively, sternly. I catch Rose’s eye, point to the tray at the bottom of the board, and before Miss Swope has reached the phone we’ve covered each other in powder. I do a last little dance out the door as I follow Miss Swope’s directions to the office, but I still catch the smile trying to peek out from behind her stern teacher face. This is why I haven’t been asked to follow any stupid algebraic steps; this is why I already have my A+. Rose doesn’t follow me; Miss Swope knows she only gets up to trouble when I get her into it. It’s only silliness, anyhow. It’s not like they’re putting me in the back of a police cruiser again. That was much more fun than chalk dust.</p>
<pre><code>Drama, excitement was my single-minded purpose then, mischief and distraction. A few months later I would have all the drama I could ever have wanted; short of committing murder, what more drama could a sixteen-year-old girl ask for? But I never stopped to think that getting pregnant would so abruptly put an end to all my fun. Then again, I never stopped to think about anything at all. Now that was no longer an option. Suddenly there was everything to think about, suddenly life became serious. But it wasn’t necessity that sobered me; more like possession. One night I went to sleep, a trouble-making, drama-seeking, completely aimless teenager. The next morning I woke up, a Mom. It’s the sort of thing you read in cheesy novels, not something you think is possible in real, true life. Maybe it was just the hormones; I still get a little mischievous sometimes. Then again, it’s usually my nine-year-old who starts it.
If you ask him, he’ll tell you; he saved his mom’s life. Mom wouldn’t even have made it through high school if it hadn’t been for him. Not that the majority of the girls at Cyesis didn’t drop out regardless of the fact that a high school had been built just for them, complete with attached daycares and parenting classes. And I thought my government class was trying. Isn’t parenting supposed to be instinctual? While I did go back to school to complete my high school diploma, and even managed to stay out of trouble, my grades never did quite catch up to my IQ. Through elementary and middle school, I routinely scored ninety-nine percentiles in nearly all subjects on periodic achievement tests, but from kindergarten to 12th grade I achieved honor roll only twice, usually hovering around a C average. The Cs themselves, though, were nothing to the constant disappointment my parents and teachers expressed in me. But once again my son would prove to be the answer to my problems.
Dylan was a happy, lively, curious baby, who smiled and laughed and rolled over and walked far before other infants his age did, and he still has the scars to prove it. It was obvious before he had reached the age of two that in this age of learning disabilities, Dylan wouldn’t last more than a few months in kindergarten before teachers affixed that now-popular new label on him; ADHD. Not that I was too old to have known a few of those ADHD kids when I was in school; one of them even convinced me that I was similarly afflicted. But my father didn’t believe in psychiatric ‘illness’, and my mother had had, as she told me when I brought it up, enough of my excuses. But my five-year-old son, struggling horribly after only a few months of kindergarten, was another matter entirely. It wasn’t long before I’d learned enough about ADHD to teach his various doctors a thing or two, and it hadn’t escaped me, in reading descriptions of little girls and the differing symptoms they exhibited of this ‘disability’, that what my mother had once called just another excuse had likely been anything but. Children often provide a better surface for self-reflection than even the finest mirror.
Today, Dylan still struggles with his unique personality and learning style, as I prefer to think of it, but he does so at an exceptional gifted school that admits only those students who have proven their intelligence through grades and IQ and academic tests. Had no one intervened when he began struggling in kindergarten he likely would have ended up at a school quite the opposite. And in his success lies my own. As I learned how to help him learn, I gained those same skills myself. Everything there is to know, we learn together, and improve together. Long ago I gave up on the idea of ever doing my intellect justice, and tossed aside any motivations to that respect for fear of failure. Now, inspired by my son’s achievements, and enriched by the new self awareness I have gained because of him, I am convinced of my ability to try again where I once gave up, and this time succeed. Beyond helping me with my homework, there’s no telling how my son might redeem me next.
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<p>* I feel like this last paragraph is really weak, sappy, cheesy… any suggestions would be great*</p>