Andrew Won
Mr. Giddings
AP 11th Grade English
February 3, 2009
Human beings have the capability to experience many sensations. They can see, hear, taste, smell, and feel various stimuli as they live through life. However, the true marvel of the human being is realized when these pieces of information are formed into subconscious perceptions through the processing of thought. Each person has a unique manner in which they approach a situation. My own thought process is fairly simple when seen through a larger scope; when the situation does not hold much importance to me, I will skim the situation and make shallow, quick decisions to respond, but when the situation is of greater significance my thought process becomes highly intricate and methodical.
There are many situations where I might feel it is almost beneath my notice. For instance, two months ago, I was told to write a short letter of gratitude to one of my math tutors, Mr. Andrew, because he was moving away. I felt he was genuinely a good guy, but only outside of the classroom. While teaching, I thought he was the laziest excuse for a tutor I had ever met. At first, it was awkward writing anything to him, since I detested that class, and as a result had nothing to be thankful for. In the end, I managed to write something that resembled a miserable good-bye letter. While I was writing, I misspelled “angle” with “angel” and I had to choose whether to scribble it out or strike it cleanly through with a line. I wasn’t concerned with how sincere my letter would or would not sound to him, so I absent-mindedly scribbled it out while trying to find another way to express my “regret” at his leaving. Since I did not care much about the task at hand, and saw it more as an unwanted burden, anything that sounded even a bit depressed was more than adequate for me. In this mode of thinking, I do not pay attention to what I do or say because it does not mean anything to me.
However, I was in a similar situation with another tutor; the only difference was that I felt genuinely sad she was leaving. Her name was Jenny, and she was my physics tutor. She was patient with me, even though I was obviously very lacking in this area of science, and I understood the material by the time I walked out the door. A couple of weeks after Mr. Andrew left the tutoring center, Jenny sprung the news that she was leaving as well. She had been my tutor for two years, so naturally I had become rather grateful to her by then. It seemed only right to give her a proper farewell letter, on proper stationary with proper, heartfelt words. My spelling had not gotten any better by then, resulting in another spelling mistake. I had written “receive” as “recieve.” This time, I could not choose whether to cross it out or scribble it out. I wished I could have thrown away that page and started over on a brand new sheet, but because the tutoring center was on a low supply of expensive paper, I had no choice but to do one or the other. If I crossed it out, it would look neater and be less noticeable, but she would see the mistake I made and I would look foolish in front of her. Scribbling would get rid of the mistake completely but it would ruin the neat look. Whichever decision I made, the image cast of me would not be very favorable. Then I started thinking about what a marred letter would imply about me. What if she thought I did not respect her or that it was a meaningless letter? Will she dismiss my letter as just any old letter? Eventually I scribbled it out and hurriedly wrote the rest of it, because she was on her way out for the last time. In this mindset, I become too absorbed in my task and get easily distracted by insignificant things, or go off on a tangent.
In the first scenario, I did not care much for what I was doing and who I was doing it for, which resulted in my indifferent approach to the task I had to do. In the second scenario, the person I was writing for held a deeper root with me, and wishing to present an adequate farewell, I became far too absorbed in my task and “missed the bigger picture”. Depending on how I perceive my situation and the people involved in it, the path my thoughts take will fluctuate greatly. They may still end up with similar conclusions but what I experience and perceive will always be unique to the specific feelings I have towards the issue.
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