"Baseball is about going home ... and how hard it is to get there, and how driven is our need." — A. Bartlett Giamatti
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Another homework post
Ambition ... it drives Roy to do some stupid things and it drives him to greatness. In your life, how have your ambitions gotten the better of you? How have your ambitions helped you succeed? Be specific but appropriate in your personal reference.
During the college admission process I strived to be the best student I could be. In order for colleges to accept me I needed to be the best writer, partake in the most extracurriculars, and take the most challenging classes my school had to offer. Although I was not competing against a particular person, I was competing against the entire student population. My ambition originally caused some tension within my household. Similar to Roy, when Memo continues to compare Roy to Bump (112), I became more angry and frustrated. This was most prominent during the period of time where my grade was taking the SAT's. The pressure from parents combined with comparing my scores with other students made me irritable at different points during the four month period. My ambition led to positive results as well. The SAT frustrated me, but my drive to be better led to my score increasing. In addition, the constant editing and reediting of my essays allowed me to produce some of my best personal writing and make my application the best it could be. The work paid off in the end because I was able to get into college. Ambition can lead a person in either direction, success or destruction, but as long as it doesn't consume your entire life then it should lead you to success. - Lexy Thompson
One particular time when my ambition got the best of me was when I tried to help a friend. One of my best middle school friends, let’s call him Ian, was not really fitting in socially at his new high school. I believed I had the social grace to find him new friends at other schools, so I tried multiple times to introduce him to people at other high schools. After a few failed attempts, the perfect opportunity arose: our mutual friend at Tam, let’s call him Max, was having a going away party before he took a year abroad in Argentina. Since I knew a lot of people at Tam, I convinced the reluctant Ian that he should go. Once there, I introduced him to people, and made him appear as the witty, interesting person I knew him to be. By the end of the night, he had had an awful time and I felt like a terrible friend. Even today, Ian may still resent me for it. I was ambitious enough to think that I had the ability to change someone's life for the better, without really knowing what they themselves wanted. This failure is something I will never forget. On a different note, a time when my ambitions helped me succeed was during the end-of-year sophomore trial. As an attorney on the team defending the president who let Chevron invade and pollute his country with toxic oil spills, we had a tough case from the start. With hard work however, I believed we could still win. My fellow lawyers and I prepped our witnesses throughly and reviewed all the testimony and after the trial was over our defendant was allowed to walk free. Since my side had lost during a mock trial of Harry Truman in eighth grade (we should have won), I had a strong desire to win this case. Luckily so did my new team, and our ambitions payed off.
The most common way my ambitions get the better of me is when I take on more work than I can handle because I want to prove myself to others. This came to a head during the winter of my junior year when I tried to balance: selling 80 boxes of grapefruits and 80 poinsettias for Amigos, heading a special extra Amigos fundraising group, acting as section leader for the youth division of the future leaders campaign of Youth and Government, running for California Youth Secretary of State, applying to be the youth representative to the Y&G board of directors, taking 7 classes without a free, and being on MA's swim team. I ended up working myself to exhaustion and illness by never taking a break from work and then barely getting 5 hours of sleep at night (if that). I got through that winter but I vowed I would never let myself get to that point again.
However, my ambition has also really helped me when I didn't take it to an extreme. In Youth & Government there is and extra Conference on National Affairs where each state Y&G exists takes a delegation. In California, only 0.1% of the total delegates (25 people) are selected for the conference each year. The application process is highly competitive, and as a freshman everyone told me I didn't have a chance. I was told that I didn't have enough experience, that I didn't stand out enough, and that they had never taken a freshman before. I still believed I had a chance though, so I spent hours on my application essays, asked multiple teachers for recommendation letters, and anticipated "spies" watching my performance at the final conference so I made sure to speak as often as I was allowed by the chair. My ambition paid off and I ended up being selected as the first freshman to represent California in that conference, and I have never been happier to have gone for something no one believed I could achieve.
Growing up as a small child, I very quickly developed a Napoleonic complex. I would always try to muscle people around, which is sometimes hard to do when you’re half their age and a few heads shorter. One day, my neighbor (who’s six years older than me) really got under my skin. I was probably about six, so he was quite a bit more grown up than me. I don’t remember what he said, but I knew that I was really mad and wanted to hit him. I tried to do s side kick like I had learned in Tae kwon do, but my leg came up short of his body, and he grabbed my ankle. Then, he literally picked me up by my feet and dropped me on my head on the concrete sidewalk in front of my house. I don’t remember much after the part where I was inverted, but I definitely picked my battles more carefully after that. One time when my ambitions (finally) paid off was in middle school. In middle school, I was very interested in baking and wanted to become a pastry chef when I grew up, so I started my own pastry business. I had my dad help me with a logo to put on a sticker for the delivery boxes and had a whole operation set up. I successfully sold two cakes (one was for Slamo’s birthday) to two happy customers before the business gave way to my rising amounts of homework. To this day I still cannot decide if I should have put more energy into it so the business would survive. -Compost
One of my personal ambitions is to become one of the top tennis players on the MA varsity team. When I do something such as a sport or a game, I am usually very competitve because I strive to be the best at it even if I can't be. This attitude is both helpful and detrimental. It's very helpful because it drives me to practice and work harder than my competition, which allows me to get closer to reaching my goal. However, this attidude can also be damaging, because if I can't live up to my high expectations for myself, this often leads to dissapointment, and I feel as if I could not reach my goal because of a lack of effort on my part, which is not always the case. I feel that this competitive nature is also what Roy possesses, and it has shown to be both beneficial and detrimental at times. However, I think I have slightly less of a competitive spirt than Roy, which should hopefully lead to less dissappointment than Roy experienced (or will experience). -Matt Feder
When I began playing basketball it was the summer before my freshman year. I had essentially no experience and was a tiny freshman. For a while I was simply intimidated by the sport and the other players, but as I progressed I was acutely aware of my inexperience. No matter what I did to practice and try to catch up, my peers had years of practice and I always felt one step behind. I very much wished I had the skills and talent to be the best, to catch up with and even surpass my teammates. But this mindset made me unhappy as I was too focused on comparing myself to others and lost sight of the point of playing: to have fun. My ambitions drove me to practice more and progress very quickly, attaining skills that I am proud of to this day. However I never reached the level of my peers in my mind and therefore never felt satisfied. Roy too is focused on being the best and this blinds him to the other parts of his life that deserve his attention, and take away from the joy of the sport. If Roy is to prevent another slump like the one from which he has just escaped, he must change the way he thinks about his life and view the world in a more positive and balanced manner. -Adam
The most striking example of my ambition getting the better of me, while simultaneously fueling my success, has been volleyball. I began playing in 7th grade on a CYO team, completely clueless of the rules, the technique, and everything else that had to do with the sport. However, despite my utter ignorance of the game, I felt extremely pressured and also compelled to be much better than the awkward and horribly ungraceful player that I was. This pressure came from the older girls that would practice one court over from us in this tiny gym. I was in awe of their abilities (though in retrospect they weren't much better than I was at the time) and vowed to one day be better than they were. This decision led me to try out for a club volleyball team once the short CYO season was over, which to my dismay and total humiliation I did not make. This rejection, paired with the small victory the next CYO season in making the "A" team as opposed to the "B" team, provoked the intense need I had to prove to myself that I could be better, and I once again tried out for that same team, now one age group older, the next club season. Fortunately for my self-esteem, I did make the team that year, and every year since. In that sense, my ambition was the key to my success because I refused to stop until I'd achieved my goal. Now, I am playing up on my club's 18s team, again thanks to my ambition, because I find myself unable to stop my ambition from intensifying my need to be the best. At the beginning of this club season, I found myself completely behind the rest of my more advanced team in terms of skill and experience. I felt constant pressure, and still sometimes do, to be much better than I was, and this pressure made volleyball very difficult for me to enjoy for some time. I wondered honestly if my ambition had gotten the better of me, and put me in a place where I would not succeed as I thought I would. I was embarrassed and upset with myself for not recognizing that my goal to be the best had in fact hindered my ability to be just that. Over time, this embarrassment has worn off and I have become a better player for it, but now I feel as though I have to go to an even better college for volleyball, and I find myself once again in a similar situation. My ambition refuses to let me settle for anything less than the best, and I struggle with the consequences. -Keli
During the college admission process I strived to be the best student I could be. In order for colleges to accept me I needed to be the best writer, partake in the most extracurriculars, and take the most challenging classes my school had to offer. Although I was not competing against a particular person, I was competing against the entire student population. My ambition originally caused some tension within my household. Similar to Roy, when Memo continues to compare Roy to Bump (112), I became more angry and frustrated. This was most prominent during the period of time where my grade was taking the SAT's. The pressure from parents combined with comparing my scores with other students made me irritable at different points during the four month period. My ambition led to positive results as well. The SAT frustrated me, but my drive to be better led to my score increasing. In addition, the constant editing and reediting of my essays allowed me to produce some of my best personal writing and make my application the best it could be. The work paid off in the end because I was able to get into college. Ambition can lead a person in either direction, success or destruction, but as long as it doesn't consume your entire life then it should lead you to success.
ReplyDelete- Lexy Thompson
August:
ReplyDeleteOne particular time when my ambition got the best of me was when I tried to help a friend. One of my best middle school friends, let’s call him Ian, was not really fitting in socially at his new high school. I believed I had the social grace to find him new friends at other schools, so I tried multiple times to introduce him to people at other high schools. After a few failed attempts, the perfect opportunity arose: our mutual friend at Tam, let’s call him Max, was having a going away party before he took a year abroad in Argentina. Since I knew a lot of people at Tam, I convinced the reluctant Ian that he should go. Once there, I introduced him to people, and made him appear as the witty, interesting person I knew him to be. By the end of the night, he had had an awful time and I felt like a terrible friend. Even today, Ian may still resent me for it. I was ambitious enough to think that I had the ability to change someone's life for the better, without really knowing what they themselves wanted. This failure is something I will never forget. On a different note, a time when my ambitions helped me succeed was during the end-of-year sophomore trial. As an attorney on the team defending the president who let Chevron invade and pollute his country with toxic oil spills, we had a tough case from the start. With hard work however, I believed we could still win. My fellow lawyers and I prepped our witnesses throughly and reviewed all the testimony and after the trial was over our defendant was allowed to walk free. Since my side had lost during a mock trial of Harry Truman in eighth grade (we should have won), I had a strong desire to win this case. Luckily so did my new team, and our ambitions payed off.
The most common way my ambitions get the better of me is when I take on more work than I can handle because I want to prove myself to others. This came to a head during the winter of my junior year when I tried to balance: selling 80 boxes of grapefruits and 80 poinsettias for Amigos, heading a special extra Amigos fundraising group, acting as section leader for the youth division of the future leaders campaign of Youth and Government, running for California Youth Secretary of State, applying to be the youth representative to the Y&G board of directors, taking 7 classes without a free, and being on MA's swim team. I ended up working myself to exhaustion and illness by never taking a break from work and then barely getting 5 hours of sleep at night (if that). I got through that winter but I vowed I would never let myself get to that point again.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my ambition has also really helped me when I didn't take it to an extreme. In Youth & Government there is and extra Conference on National Affairs where each state Y&G exists takes a delegation. In California, only 0.1% of the total delegates (25 people) are selected for the conference each year. The application process is highly competitive, and as a freshman everyone told me I didn't have a chance. I was told that I didn't have enough experience, that I didn't stand out enough, and that they had never taken a freshman before. I still believed I had a chance though, so I spent hours on my application essays, asked multiple teachers for recommendation letters, and anticipated "spies" watching my performance at the final conference so I made sure to speak as often as I was allowed by the chair. My ambition paid off and I ended up being selected as the first freshman to represent California in that conference, and I have never been happier to have gone for something no one believed I could achieve.
Growing up as a small child, I very quickly developed a Napoleonic complex. I would always try to muscle people around, which is sometimes hard to do when you’re half their age and a few heads shorter. One day, my neighbor (who’s six years older than me) really got under my skin. I was probably about six, so he was quite a bit more grown up than me. I don’t remember what he said, but I knew that I was really mad and wanted to hit him. I tried to do s side kick like I had learned in Tae kwon do, but my leg came up short of his body, and he grabbed my ankle. Then, he literally picked me up by my feet and dropped me on my head on the concrete sidewalk in front of my house. I don’t remember much after the part where I was inverted, but I definitely picked my battles more carefully after that. One time when my ambitions (finally) paid off was in middle school. In middle school, I was very interested in baking and wanted to become a pastry chef when I grew up, so I started my own pastry business. I had my dad help me with a logo to put on a sticker for the delivery boxes and had a whole operation set up. I successfully sold two cakes (one was for Slamo’s birthday) to two happy customers before the business gave way to my rising amounts of homework. To this day I still cannot decide if I should have put more energy into it so the business would survive.
ReplyDelete-Compost
One of my personal ambitions is to become one of the top tennis players on the MA varsity team. When I do something such as a sport or a game, I am usually very competitve because I strive to be the best at it even if I can't be. This attitude is both helpful and detrimental. It's very helpful because it drives me to practice and work harder than my competition, which allows me to get closer to reaching my goal. However, this attidude can also be damaging, because if I can't live up to my high expectations for myself, this often leads to dissapointment, and I feel as if I could not reach my goal because of a lack of effort on my part, which is not always the case. I feel that this competitive nature is also
ReplyDeletewhat Roy possesses, and it has shown to be both beneficial and detrimental at times. However, I think I have slightly less of a competitive spirt than Roy, which should hopefully lead to less dissappointment than Roy experienced (or will experience).
-Matt Feder
When I began playing basketball it was the summer before my freshman year. I had essentially no experience and was a tiny freshman. For a while I was simply intimidated by the sport and the other players, but as I progressed I was acutely aware of my inexperience. No matter what I did to practice and try to catch up, my peers had years of practice and I always felt one step behind. I very much wished I had the skills and talent to be the best, to catch up with and even surpass my teammates. But this mindset made me unhappy as I was too focused on comparing myself to others and lost sight of the point of playing: to have fun. My ambitions drove me to practice more and progress very quickly, attaining skills that I am proud of to this day. However I never reached the level of my peers in my mind and therefore never felt satisfied. Roy too is focused on being the best and this blinds him to the other parts of his life that deserve his attention, and take away from the joy of the sport. If Roy is to prevent another slump like the one from which he has just escaped, he must change the way he thinks about his life and view the world in a more positive and balanced manner.
ReplyDelete-Adam
The most striking example of my ambition getting the better of me, while simultaneously fueling my success, has been volleyball. I began playing in 7th grade on a CYO team, completely clueless of the rules, the technique, and everything else that had to do with the sport. However, despite my utter ignorance of the game, I felt extremely pressured and also compelled to be much better than the awkward and horribly ungraceful player that I was. This pressure came from the older girls that would practice one court over from us in this tiny gym. I was in awe of their abilities (though in retrospect they weren't much better than I was at the time) and vowed to one day be better than they were. This decision led me to try out for a club volleyball team once the short CYO season was over, which to my dismay and total humiliation I did not make. This rejection, paired with the small victory the next CYO season in making the "A" team as opposed to the "B" team, provoked the intense need I had to prove to myself that I could be better, and I once again tried out for that same team, now one age group older, the next club season. Fortunately for my self-esteem, I did make the team that year, and every year since. In that sense, my ambition was the key to my success because I refused to stop until I'd achieved my goal. Now, I am playing up on my club's 18s team, again thanks to my ambition, because I find myself unable to stop my ambition from intensifying my need to be the best.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of this club season, I found myself completely behind the rest of my more advanced team in terms of skill and experience. I felt constant pressure, and still sometimes do, to be much better than I was, and this pressure made volleyball very difficult for me to enjoy for some time. I wondered honestly if my ambition had gotten the better of me, and put me in a place where I would not succeed as I thought I would. I was embarrassed and upset with myself for not recognizing that my goal to be the best had in fact hindered my ability to be just that. Over time, this embarrassment has worn off and I have become a better player for it, but now I feel as though I have to go to an even better college for volleyball, and I find myself once again in a similar situation. My ambition refuses to let me settle for anything less than the best, and I struggle with the consequences.
-Keli