College Long Essay

By unlocking the door to my past, one sees his thoughts and actions when they first took hold of his persona. This essay serves as a key to that door and to my current
personality.

The first beloved books in my life were the Sesame Street Encyclopedia volumes. At
three, I wasn"t old enough to read them, but I always wanted to have them read to me. In
fact, I memorized the ten volume set so when my parents would skip some pages I would
ask them to read what they skipped. After learning to read on my own, my favorite book
became the anatomy volume in the Charlie Brown Encyclopedia. Courtesy of a
supermarket book offer, I was the only kindergartner who knew about fertilized egg
cells. As I grew older, I continued to read largely because reading taught me so much
outside of what we learned in school.

Since kindergarten, my extensive reading also originated my various interests, especially in science. Living within walking distance of the library, I went there every day, enabling me to dabble in a different subject during each visit. By the fourth grade, I had read all the chemistry books containing fewer than 200 pages, by the fifth grade I was reading about Einstein"s Theory of Relativity. During that time period, I became so interested in astronomy through Odyssey Magazine that I sold holiday cards door-to-door in order to buy a telescope.

Reading also helped me in school. A little ingenuity didn"t hurt, either. For example, as
part of my third grade reading grade, I needed to do some independent reading. Every sixty pages in a book counted for one star of credit and in order to get an "A, " I needed fifteen stars. I was greedy and saw this as an opportunity to shine far above the rest of my
classmates. Instead of reading many short books, I devoured 300-page sagas by Laura
Ingalls Wilder. When everyone else got eighteen stars, the little banana with my name
on it had 45. This inner drive and competition still motivates my work...