Free Essays on Old Man And The Sea

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago, during his forlorn excursion out to the ocean, discovered that life offered him a verifiable bliss in addition to disappointment. Respect, valor, and battle were impediments Santiago experienced which gave him fearlessness and confidence. For example, Santiago’s life was loaded up with respect. The past and the present were recollections about which the elderly person was generally glad. The elderly person persevered through huge physical torment, similar to the squeezing in his grasp, driving him to nearly surrender. To empower himself, the elderly person recollected when he was â€Å"el campeon† meaning â€Å"the champion† in Spanish. For quite a while after that everybody had called him â€Å"the champion† (Pg. 70). The memory of being a victor resuscitated Santiago’s endurance, urging him to look for another objective. His next objective, the marlin, at last tested him. He battled the fish for such a long time that he shaped a kind of bond with the fish, and he said â€Å"Fish, I will remain with you until I am dead† (Pg. 52). Right now, when Santiago speared the marlin through the heart, he realized that he was triumphant. This demonstration sensibly calmed Santiago; he i ncreased more respect and fearlessness. Therefore, Santiago’s life was loaded up with a sentiment of honorability. Besides, Santiago frequently discussed his legend, Joe DiMaggio, a well known and prominent baseball player. Joe DiMaggio straightforwardly and in a roundabout way influenced the elderly person. His activities, similar to when he played baseball with the bone prod, and his mentalities added to the old man’s life. Pondering DiMaggio demonstrated the elderly person the best approach to triumph. His love of DiMaggio woke the boldness that was inside the old man’s heart. As Santiago suspected a definitive test was finished, the most exceedingly terrible was at this point to come. The mako sharks had detected the marlin’s blood in the water and moved after it. It drew nearer and assaulted the marlin. Santiago executed the main shark. From that point onward, the sharks continued coming. Th... Free Essays on Old Man And The Sea Free Essays on Old Man And The Sea In Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago, during his desolate excursion out to the ocean, discovered that life offered him a certain happiness in addition to disappointment. Respect, gallantry, and battle were deterrents Santiago experienced which gave him fortitude and confidence. For example, Santiago’s life was loaded up with respect. The past and the present were recollections about which the elderly person was generally glad. The elderly person persevered through colossal physical agony, similar to the squeezing in his grasp, driving him to nearly surrender. To support himself, the elderly person recollected when he was â€Å"el campeon† meaning â€Å"the champion† in Spanish. For quite a while after that everybody had called him â€Å"the champion† (Pg. 70). The memory of being a victor restored Santiago’s endurance, urging him to look for another objective. His next objective, the marlin, eventually tested him. He battled the fish for such a long time that he shaped a kind of bond with the fish, and he said â€Å"Fish, I will remain with you until I am dead† (Pg. 52). Right now, when Santiago speared the marlin through the heart, he realized that he was triumphant. This demonstration reasonably calmed Santiago; h e increased more respect and self-assurance. Thus, Santiago’s life was loaded up with a sentiment of respectability. Moreover, Santiago frequently discussed his saint, Joe DiMaggio, a celebrated and prominent baseball player. Joe DiMaggio legitimately and by implication influenced the elderly person. His activities, similar to when he played baseball with the bone spike, and his perspectives added to the old man’s life. Considering DiMaggio indicated the elderly person the best approach to triumph. His love of DiMaggio woke the fearlessness that was inside the old man’s heart. As Santiago suspected a definitive test was finished, the most exceedingly terrible was at this point to come. The mako sharks had detected the marlin’s blood in the water and moved after it. It drew nearer and assaulted the marlin. Santiago murdered the primary shark. From that point forward, the sharks continued coming. Th... Free Essays on Old Man And The Sea In the books that we have perused this semester there are two books that I decided to expound on the first being The Old Man and the Sea and the second being The Crucible. The explanation I picked these two books is on the grounds that I feel that if there are main thrusts within each individual that cause an individual to do awful things there likewise ought to be something within us all to cause us to do great. I feel that these two books show that there are in truth the two sorts of these main thrusts. Now and again both of these powers are available and in others there is just one present. The Crucible was set in an unusual time when individuals were searching for strict opportunity. These equivalent individuals who needed to be disregarded to maintain their religion moved to the current day Massachusetts where they attempted to push their religion onto the individuals who previously lived there. As of now you can see the logical inconsistency, these individuals wished to be free and when they got their desire they needed to drive their convictions upon others. The general subject of this book was that nearly everybody was out to secure themselves, these individuals would accuse others, blame them for witchery so as to shield from being denounced themselves. The individuals of Salem would do whatever was important so as to keep a demonstrate innocence. Most of them were ideal instances of how the main impetus within some can make even great individuals do awful things. Then again an incredible case of a resilient individual who knew directly from wrong was John Proctor . He would not like to partake in the exchange of blame and this demonstrates at any rate now and again these main impetuses are utilized for a decent purpose. The subsequent book is very extraordinary in that there are no allegations being made constantly and there are not so much choices to be made over good and bad. The elderly person, Santiago, an angler who was having misfortune had gone forty days before the boy’s guardians disallowed him to angle with the elderly person. The reality th...

20 Personal Essay Topics What to Write about Your Favorite Food

20 Personal Essay Topics What to Write about Your Favorite Food On the off chance that you are composing a most loved food individual paper, at that point you may be battling to locate a decent method to work out the subject. Recollect that this kind of composing is intended for you to introduce your preferred food, yet it tends to be done as such in an assortment of ways. The subjects beneath can be acceptable points through which you show to the peruser your preferred food and why. For instance, in the event that you are a competitor and you love chomping on steamed rice and broccoli, at that point you can expound on dietary cycles for weight lifting and muscle working as the subject to present your preferred food. This ought to be a paper that you appreciate, so appreciate the twenty point proposals underneath: Step by step instructions to Change Snack Intake Gradually to Improve Physical, Mental, and Emotional Health - My Favorite Ways. Standards of Nutrition and Calorie Consumption in My Favorite Food. Dietary Cycles I Use for Weight Lifting and Muscle Building. How I Change Diet Gradually to Improve Fiber Intake. What Snacks I Eat to Keep the Body Healthy and Clean. Various Diets and Which One Is the Best for My Lifestyle. How I Started Changing Heavier Carbohydrates for Midday Meals and Not Dinners. Which Foods I Eat to Combat Inflammation and Exhaustion. Snacks I Avoid Because of Their Unhealthiness. Nourishments Specifically for Fighting Certain Diseases. My Favorite Foods to Improve Weight Lifting Results and Bodybuilding. My AB Blood Type Snack Foods and Foods to Avoid. The Way I Handle Excess Calories from My Favorite Food. Why My Blood Type O Needs Higher Rates of Fish and Less Grains. Why I, As Blood Type A, Should Be Vegetarian. My Best Foods for Blood Type B. The Negative Impact of Distillation Process and Potential Cross Contamination for Liquors-Why I Avoid Them. Effect of Processed Meats and Their Lack of Nutritional Value-Why I Change My Eating Ways. How I Avoid Sugar Replacements for Snack Foods and Replace Them with Complex Sugars. Which Snacks We Eat That Are Scientifically Linked to Different Forms of Degenerative Diseases. Recollect obviously that these are intended to manage you and may not really be the best fit for your specific composing errand or task. You may likewise give a glance at our intriguing realities on most loved food and composing exhortation article on close to home papers. Since there are such a significant number of from which to pick, and on the grounds that the way toward introducing your preferred food in an innovative light can be trying for understudies, you are additionally given an example beneath of one of the themes with the goal that you can perceive how an article of this sort may be appropriately composed. Test Personal Essay â€Å"Handling Excess Calories from Your Favorite Food† Today, there are numerous individuals worried about calorie harmony. They center exclusively around the possibility that so as to be sound you need to concentrate on the quantity of calories you take in and you should ensure that the quantity of calories you expend is comparable to the quantity of calories you have consumed off. Be that as it may, there is a trick to this idea: a solitary calorie consumed by dozing or by practicing is as yet a calorie consumed however only one out of every odd calorie you devour is the equivalent. A few sorts of calories will procure bigger repercussions on your body in contrast with others, and a great many people are so willfully ignorant of these distinctions or the things they can do to forestall in any case hurtful consequences welcomed on by these unsafe calories. So while organic product may be the best food there is, numerous individuals believe natural product to be similarly the same number of calories as something less solid, which isn't e xactly obvious. At the point when a person’s body gets overabundance calories, the manner in which it for the most part handles that heap is to change over the calories into insulin or fat. In any case, the distinction lies in the calorie sources themselves. Expending 150 calories from almonds is prepared diversely in your body contrasted with devouring the equivalent 150 calories from a Coca Cola. Inside the normal Coca Cola there is more sugar than the American Heart Association directs an individual ought to devour in a solitary day (the pace of which is 6-9 tablespoons for every day from any source). The higher sugar tallies which are ingested will quickly arrive at the liver on the grounds that the Coca Cola, in contrast to almonds or some other more advantageous bite, has no fiber. The fiber contained normally in organic products or vegetables keeps the sugar from arriving at your liver right away. In any case, with a pop, the liver proselytes the sugar promptly into fat which builds yo ur insulin levels. Something else that numerous individuals don't perceive with their preferred nibble nourishments and beverages is that the body will process nourishments in various manners. Devouring a bit of organic product as a tidbit furnishes your body with characteristic sugars which are prepared in precisely the same path as fabricated sugars found in soft drinks. However, the distinction here lies in the way that when the body expends sugars from regular products of the soil, it at the same time gets fiber which assists with separating the sugar over a more drawn out timeframe instead of at the same time. On the off chance that you devour your sugar source without the fiber, everything goes to the liver and the liver gets exhausted. At the point when this happens the pancreas needs to assist with forestalling insulin levels from spiking excessively high and changes over the abundance sugar and insulin into fat which remains put away in the body. One approach to take a gander at it that consuming off the calories expended from a sound tidbit plate of foods grown from the ground is a lot simpler for your body than consuming off the calories that you get from the pizza and soft drink devoured the prior night. So as to consume off a Coca Cola, you have to ride a bicycle for 1:20 and to consume off one treat you need to run for 20 minutes. So as to dispose of the calories from 1 medium box of French fries from McDonalds, you would need to swim for 1:15. A great many people truly do not have the time they have to dispose of the calories that they take in from unfortunate sources, which leaves the calories put away in the body as fat as opposed to changed over as helpful vitality. As a result of the dangers in question, it is basic to comprehend the calorie types associated with the nibble nourishments you appreciate and to moderate the danger of higher fat stockpiling by devouring more advantageous other options. References GOTTSCHALK, A., PARTRIDGE, S. (1950). Collaboration Between Simple Sugars and Amino-Acids. Nature, 165(4200), 684-685. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/165684a0 Haugen, D., Musser, S. (2012). Nutrition. Detroit: Greenhaven Press/Gale Cengage Learning. Insel, P., Turner, R., Ross, D. (2007). Nutrition. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Lakatos, L., Shames, T. (2004). Fire up your digestion. New York: Simon and Schuster. Schuh, M. (2013). Sugars and fats. Mankato, Minn.: Capstone Press. Shils, M., Shike, M. (2006). Modern nourishment in wellbeing and malady. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams Wilkins. Venuto, T. (2009). The muscle versus fat arrangement. New York: Avery.

21 Firsts

21 Firsts It’s been 3.5 years since I came to the United States from Nigeria, to study at MIT. In 2017, this ongoing chapter of my life promises to close. I graduate in June, if all goes well. A short while afterward, I celebrate my 21st birthday. Just a week ago, I imagined one version of what the future may look like. I suppose this is a sequel of sorts, one that threads through the pages of an established past. The years since my coming to USA, to MIT, have been some of the most monumental years of my life. I came to experience several things for the first time. These are some of them. ** 1. First time using a washing machine. My first time in the States was prefixed by living with my aunt and her family in Virginia, prior to starting orientation at MIT. Even then, I was still experiencing the first signs of culture shock: jetlag manifesting as odd sleep cycles and slight unease, buildings and roads whose structures were recognizable yet somewhat alien, intensely fast internet. And washing machines. In Nigeria, washing machines exist, but they aren’t common, and they certainly weren’t present at home. As such, like alien spaceships and McDonalds, they were relegated to Hollywood cinema for me. We washed our clothes by filling two buckets with water, one in which we soaked the clothes in detergent, and the other in which we rinsed them. Each fabric was picked up, scrubbed diligently, transferred to the rinse bucket, then pegged to a clothesline in the backyard to dry in the sun over the course of days. Rainy days were especially annoying, as they would prolong the drying time, or in cases of strong wind, would unpeg clothes, sending two hours of work flying into the sand. This was a fun, if monotonous, weekly ritual. I always used this opportunity to plug my tangled earphones into my MP3 player and rock out to P-Square and Styl-Plus, two of my favorite Nigerian musical groups. That first week performing laundry in the US was a little like magic, staring at this alien device, this thing of the movies. With the strange buttons and knobs and labels. My aunt helped me figure out how to use a washer and a dryer, and some tiny part of me was doubtful of the entire process. Then, two hours later, I was pulling clean, sweet-smelling clothes out of the dryer. It was mindblowing. Fast forward to the present, and my lazy head now considers doing the laundry mildly stressful. But once upon a time, it was magic, and if I think about it long enough, it still is. 2. First time pulling an all-nighter. I’d never stayed up for more than twenty four hours, not to my recollection anyway, until my very first night on the MIT campus. But I’d been up all day soaking in the endless activities freshmen could partake in. I ate free food from every dorm and living group I could traverse, a nontrivial chunk of which was liquid nitrogen ice-cream. I jumped on a large bouncy house and listened in on upperclassmen, who at the time had the aura of mystical gods, talk about why they chose their majors. Then, around six p.m., I retired to the basement of Walker Memorial, where a bunch of freshmen and other MIT students were hanging. I would end up spending the next fifteen hours there, in effect pulling my first all-nighter. We devoured several bars of chocolate and talked about where we came from, how we were finding MIT so far. Then we played multiple games, from Never Have I Ever, in which I discovered I was missing out on a lot of life experiences, to an improvised version of Hide and Seek. Around 9 A.M., we decided to grab breakfast, and I zoned out while munching on waffles at the Simmons dormalso a first-time treatseeing white nothingness for a moment. I realized I needed to sleep, so I ate a little more, and made it back to my room, where I collapsed on the bed, overwhelmed and very, very happy. I passed out pretty quickly and woke up early evening. Ever since then, I’ve pulled several all-nighters. Many of them have been less fun, usually trying to complete a challenging problem set, or studying for an upcoming midterm. But many of them have been in the same spirit of that first all-nighter. On some good nights, my floormates and I at Random would just stay up, watching silly YouTube videos and arguing about silly nonsense, and I would glance at the window; lo and behold, the sun was rising. 3. First time building a robot. During Orientation Week at MIT, I took part in a program called DEECSDiscover Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, meant to introduce freshmen to the world of EECS. We were split into groups of three, and for an entire week, we were in charge of writing software and assembling hardware for a lego robot capable of navigating a color-coded maze, using photo-sensors. I would later get to play more with robots in full-fledged EECS classes during my time at MIT, at a higher level of sophistication, but you know what they say. You never forget your first robot. 4. First time eating a burrito. A mexican restaurant called Beantown Taqueria sits diagonally across Random Hall, my dorm, and I ventured in there during Orientation Week. I didn’t have to; every location at MIT was blessed with steak and ice-cream and nachos and pancakes (one moment while I heavily sob in memory of all that free food), but it was near enough and I was curious. I ordered a small, spicy chicken burrito and cut down the whole thing in seconds. I discovered I loved burritos. And tacos. And chimichangas. Since coming to the States, I’ve tried a variety of cuisinesThai, Indian, Chinese, Mediterranean, Ethiopianand as a self-proclaimed foodist, it’s been one of my greater pleasures and I’m constantly in discovery mode. Please e-mail me pictures of tasty-looking non-traditional meals. I’ll either seek them out in Boston, or have no choice but to eat my screen. 5. First time seeing a movie in 3D. A few months after my first semester at MIT, I ventured into AMC, the movie theater in Downtown Boston, and saw Captain America: Winter Soldier in IMAX 3D. Perched somewhere in the back of the theater, wolfing down sadly under-buttered popcorn and drinking overpriced Sprite from an oversized plastic cup, I watched Captain America defend his country’s honor in backdrops of explosions. It was awesome. 6. First time performing below average on an exam. Back in my Nigerian high school, I had nicknames like “Doctor Math” and “2390”. I worked my ass off on every assignment and prepared for every examination, and it paid off: I attained high grades and usually ranked at the top of the class. This crystallized an informal rule in my mind: I could always expect to see my hard work pay off in similar fashion, even at MIT. This myth was busted my very first semester, after my first Biology midterm. I spent a fair amount of time studying for this midtermfrom rewatching lecture videos online, to poring through my handwritten notes, to taking practice midtermsbut ended up scoring well below average, a somewhat crushing experience in a gloomy week. I remember sort of staring blankly at the grade, just before starting a problem set, and feeling my stomach fall. It was the first time I was situated in the bottom half of a class, and I guess my brain had trouble parsing that. This situation would occur a few more times throughout my semesters at MIT, and I would learn to take it much better, especially if I knew I’d prepared the best I could. 7. First time in prison. My first semester in MIT, I found myself in prison. In particular, the Massachusetts Correctional Institute (MCI), Framingham, an all-female prison. I was there as part of a philosophy class in the Concourse program, taught by Professor Lee Perlman, who also taught a class at MCI. We met with six inmates in a small classroom, where we talked about everything from Ancient Greek Philosophy to life beyond the walls of that room. 8. First time skydiving. Well, indoor skydiving, but stop being nitpicky. IT FELT LIKE I WAS FLYING. This actually happened less than a month into my freshman year at MIT. It was Rush Week, in which fraternities and sororities put out a ton of eventsand free food, long live free food in those glorious eternal ecstasy-filled early weeks of the academic yearfor freshmen to participate in. I spent virtually all of that week at Alpha Delta Phi, a place where I would make some amazing first-time memories (from playing Rock Band to eating lobsteror at least attempting to, and having its innards spray all over me in a grotesque assertion of dominance). One of the highlights of that week was getting to go indoor skydiving with the frat brothers. A dozen freshmen and a dozen brothers piled into a bus. Two hours later, we were at SkyVenture, a facility in New Hampshire where the best kind of dreams are realized. Turn by turn, we spent a few minutes each in a vertical wind tunnel, suspended, floating. Each turn was divided into two rounds. My first round, I had all the grace and stamina of an amputee giraffe on rollerblades, and was knocked around the glass walls of the tunnel. The second time around, I was able to maintain my balance, arms spread out, legs tucked above me. It felt like I was flying, flying, flying. I would spend the rest of the night replaying those moments. Funnily enough, the best part of the week probably came from singing It’s the Best Day Ever by Spongebob Squarepants alongside ADPhi brother Ryan Shepard. I can’t sing for squat (and I dont mean this in the cutesy can-sorta-sing-but-is-just-saying-this way, no, I actually cannot sing one tiny bit), but I let that voice rip, and he didn’t stop me. He sang along.   9. First time experiencing overt, in-your-face racism. When I look back on my time in the States, it’s often with a sense of belonging and gratitude. Places like MIT and Boston have become a comfortable home away from home. I’ve created meaningful friendships and built a fulfilling life here. But the fairytale, Wonderland-esque lens with which I’d often regarded the States got busted one very bad evening in Central Square, when I was falsely accused of theft in an extremely racist encounter. Upon realizing I wasn’t the thief, the man let go of me and walked away without an apology for his slur or his accusations, leaving me screaming at his back like an idiot. It was one of the worst experiences of my time in the States, and complicated my sense of belonging and identity. 10. First time identifying as black. USA has a race problem, one I began to perceive in greater detail when I left a home country of predominantly dark-skinned peopleso that the term “black” was never part of one’s identityand moved to a place where this skin color was situated within a minority. For the most part, it made no difference, but when it did, it really did. I fought for a while with this label, largely because I wasn’t quite sure how to reconcile my “African-ness” with the “African-American-ness” blackness often embodied. Black culture is a prevalent term that encompasses a wide swath of general experiences constructed around African American upbringingfrom music to hair to unique sentence structures to navigation around authorityand growing up in Nigeria positioned me away from much of this commonality. But then I realized that whatever perceptions non-black people had of blackness, whether malicious or indifferent, depended not on their ability to pore through my mind and see what kind of culture influenced my upbringing, but on the color of my skin. It really was that simple most of the time, and it bore ripple effects, in many ways structuring the nature of my interaction with people here, and with their expectations, and with my experiences. I came to accept and own blackness, as constructed in the States, as part of my m ultifaceted identity, and one to be proud of rather than ashamed of. 11. First time spending greater than forty hours on a single (biweekly) homework. That’s pretty self-explanatory.I hit the Submit button, tired and feeling vaguely drunk, probably a combination of a mushy brain and exhaustion and annoyance and relief. Shortly afterward, I discovered the time-saving wonders of office hours. 12. First time building a snowman. Before 2013, snow and snowmen were abstractions sometimes shown on TV or mentioned in novels. They might as well have been made-up elements of a science-fiction universe. Then I saw snow for the first time while running late for Ancient Greek Philosophy towards the end of 2013. Ran outside prepared to sprint my way to class, when I stopped in my tracks. Powders of snow were falling from the sky, dripping off frosty leaves and covering the roads in white sheets. It was beautiful. Two days later, the sheets became puddles and snow became annoying. But then Frozen happened, and made snow great again. In January 2015, one early morning, Kevin and I ventured into Killian Court where we lobbed snowballs at each other, made snow angels and worked together to build Olaf, my first and only snowman. He most likely melted to death later that afternoon. Oh well. 13. First time getting a technical A+. Grades are an important part of MIT, and I always work hard to achieve good grades, but after my first semester here, I learned that they were hardly the whole picture. Nevertheless, a memorable highlight of 2014 was taking 6.042, Mathematics for Computer Science, a class of weekly mental workouts, one that reminded me why I’d come into MIT intending to major in Mathematics, and why Computer Science was a natural extension of that desire. At the end of the semester, I got the following e-mail: It was my first technical A+ at MIT, and did much to quell some lingering doubts about whether I belonged here, and whether Computer Science was the right track for me. 14. First time creating a Youtube video. It was this video, created for one of my early blogs: I was a freshman then, and you can totally tell that the pset-deadened eyes and stoic cynicism induced by several months of weird sleep, cold weather and grueling midterms had not set in yet. Oh sweet summer child of 2013, you have a lot on the way. 15. First time experiencing a technical internship. This probably deserves its own blogpost, and I’ll talk about it in more detail in the future, but I landed my first technical internship the summer after my sophomore year. My biggest fear jumping into MIT intending to major in Computer Science was that I was entirely unprepared. I had zero programming experience, but I was talking to freshmen in orientation week who had been writing code since they were babies, who had their own apps, who were steeped in a world of formalized logic and technical jargon that sounded alien to my ears. They seemed like the ideal candidates for a CS major, not me. This fear persisted when I began searching for internships. Outside of classes, I had no tangible programming experience. Turns out I didn’t really need any. I attended a Google event in which engineers talked about their experience at the company, including an engineer who, were I even slightly more superstitious, I would have sworn the gods created and inserted into the event just for me. He talked about his shaky background prior to applying, his uncertainty with even initiating the process, and his subsequent success with the application process. He was having a blast at the company, “doing cool things that matter”. After the event, I prepared a resume, used MIT’s career office to get feedback on it, and applied to Google. Several e-mails and three technical interviews later, I got an offer letter. I spent that summer interning in Google’s Los Angeles office. My mind had conjured a very specific picture of what I wanted and expected from that experience. The picture paled in comparison to the real thing, and that remains one of the most memorable three months ever. In particular, I remember one night, laying down on my air mattress, and thinking, in a giddy sort of disbelief, that everything I wanted from life was slowly coming true. I did exciting work that summer, and again the next, this time in their Cambridge, Massachusetts office. 16. First time attending a music concert. Right after my internship in Los Angeles, I took a Greyhound bus to San Francisco where I attended my first, and so far, only concert. I would spend that night screaming, crying, dancing, singing and losing my voice, a dot in a wave of fifty thousand gyrating fans, waving glowsticks and lighting up Levi’s Stadium. 17. First time experiencing 1 year of uninterrupted electrical power. In Nigeria, electricity is a matter of arbitrariness: at any point in time, there’s a 50% chance of electrical power, so much so that my siblings and I would scream, “UP NEPA!” each time a dead bulb suddenly flickered to life (NEPA standing for National Electrical Power Authority, although this is now a dated abbreviation). In the consistent absence of electricity, my siblings and I had to devise alternative ways to entertain ourselves. For some of us, reading novels were the way to go. We also invented weird, fun games we’d play with each other, and spent inordinate amounts of time napping. As such, my time at MIT produced the first year where I experienced zero incidents of power outages. Constant electricity is something I hardly even notice anymore, except when I call home to speak to family, and they tell me about how NEPA has gotten worse lately. It’s a fairly mundane-sounding first-time experience, but there was a time when if you told me I’d experience a year like this, I’d tell you to stop drinking and get help. 18. First time having a panic attack. Spring 2016 was one of my roughest semesters at MIT. I felt overworked,I was often locked in my room, I was dealing with personal issues, and my sleep cycle was irregular. At some point, it became easier to ignore the signs of the decay than to face them head-on, and I spent every waking moment either buried in a problem set or on Netflix. One Friday afternoon, I got back to my room feeling strangely good, happy even. I microwaved some chicken, drank some Red Bull and took a nap. I woke up two hours later feeling a little weird. I realized I couldn’t feel my heart beat, and for a moment, was sure it had ceased to pump blood. But when I put a finger to my neck, I felt a steady pulse. You’re fine, I told myself. Except I didn’t feel fine. In fact, I felt worse. It felt like I was losing air, like breathing had switched from being a background process to a task of concerted effort. You’re not fine. What if you’re dying? Like right now? As soon as I thought it, it felt true. I could suddenly feel my heartbeat, and it was out of control, racing so fast, Something was very wrong. I left my room quickly and made it to the kitchen on my floor. It was empty. I ran up the stairs, completely freaking out at this point. People were on the floor above me; I blubbered what was going on to one of them. She told me I was probably having a panic attack, and had me sit in front of a TV and watch episodes of Family Guy until I calmed down. The panic attacks recurred a few times over the next several weeks, but between the first and the second, I stopped by MIT Medical, where I was referred to a psychologist Rebekah Kilman. We worked through several sessions, in which she assured me that the panic attack hadn’t been induced by the Red Bull (my initial and frankly dumb suspicion). It had everything to do with processing the different aspects of my life that I had subjugated to under the radar. I learned how to cope with my demons, even if it meant pushing back on schoolwork for a little bit, and an extended period of intense anxiety became milder by the summer and is (mostly) nonexistent now. I’ve heard mixed stories about people’s experiences with MIT Mental, but my experience with them was one of complete empathy, understanding and comfort. They helped me work through my issues the best way they could, and it made a positive difference. 19. First time having dinner at a professor’s home. I took my first creative writing class ever at MIT: Reading and Writing Short Stories with Professor Helen Lee (I also ended up taking Fiction Workshop and Advanced Fiction Workshop with her). Those classes significantly shaped the nature of the stories I wrote and how I structured them, and she is undoubtedly one of my favorite teachers ever. Even during low points of the year, she remained a beacon of light, often checking on how I was doing even in semesters I wasn’t taking any of her classes. I had dinner a few times with her and her family, most recently November of last year during thanksgiving, and in those times, it was like stepping into a bubble, where worries ceased to exist, leaving only room for good food and meaningful conversation, often about race and about writing and about life. 20. First time getting a novel published. I took a gap year between high school and college, in which time I worked on a novel. It got published my freshman year at MIT, and I returned to Nigeria the following summer to help promote it. Reading it again now, I see how differently I would structure the book were I to rewrite it, but it sold well, made several thousand dollars and people liked it. That was more than enough for me, and I’m proud of it. I’m currently working on another novel, Nkem, a word in my language that translates to Mine. It’s been gathering dust in the cobwebs of my mind for a while now, but I’m excited to spend a good chunk of this month working on it, before the next semester rolls around and starts kicking. 21. First time trying to chart the rest of my life. and realizing that I don’t have to. When I think about my life thus far, I realize there’s been a great degree of structure to it, six years of grade school, followed by six years of secondary school, followed by a gap year filled with writing and eating, followed by four years of MIT. And then whatfifty years of work, followed by retirement? I’ve never really deeply thought about life after MIT beyond the high-level desires of wanting to write stories and write code and travel. There have been some aspects that (until now) I took for granted, as certain to happen, and thus never fully inspeced. Like having a family. But as graduation draws closer, and as I start to think of the “real world” awaiting, I’ve been wondering about stuff like this. Isn’t it weirdhaving a little version of Vincent in my arms? Some dorky-looking baby reaching for my cheeks with tiny little fingers. Isn’t that surreal? And sure, I don’t have to think about having kids yet, but at some point, I will, and I don’t think I can get over that strange notion of what it would mean to bring a child into planet Earth. Or to share a bed with a soulmate for decades. Someone to love and wake up next to each morning and fight over optimal blanket appropriation. Should we divide the blankets equally? Would going by approximate body weight be more reasonable? A duel perhaps? Can we just get several gigantic comfy blankets and lay snuggled under ALL OF THEM? Can adults just do that, just buy a ton of comfy blankets? And what happens if ten years into the relationship, things start to fail and I start to hate them, or they start to hate me? What if it’s two-sided? What if it’s not? One-sided is way worse, resentment buried under a forced air of love, truth held back by the paradoxical need to preserve their happiness. And how much truth should ever be sacrificedhow much of your truth, for the sake of their happiness? I’m having all these weird ruminations about everything, from the kind of career I will have to the kind of place I will live. Ten years from now. Twenty years from now. It’s all very theoretical, and all very unnecessary, because at this point in the space-time continuum, I’m a 20-year-old kid in college trying to get a degree. 20. People have lived my life five times over that are still alive. I don’t know squat. I don’t need to figure out squat. But yet, the thoughts, the questions, are in my head fairly often, and I’m increasingly resigned to just winging it. Just seeing where things go. All I know is, I’ve experienced a lot of good things for the first time over the last few years. Coming to MIT has inarguably, definitively, made my life better and more fulfilled, often in ways I could have never anticipated. To a point, anticipation is overrated. Hope is more important. Knowing you have things to look forward to, even if you’re not quite certain of the shape they’ll take. And I know this. I can’t wait to discover what new experiences will populate my life. Whatever they are, I do know that they’re on the horizon, and as far as questions about the future go, maybe that’s all I need to know. For right now at least. Here’s to a life of many more firsts. Post Tagged #mental health