Nicholas Jennings
Coach Clark
9th Grade Humanities
11/7/2015
The Culture of Me
My dog Clover is the best person I know. Clover exemplifies everything a good person should be; She is sweet, caring, and loves nothing more than to make other people happy. I’m the same way, but for more selfish reasons. Clover tries makes people happy because that’s the only thing she knows how to do, I try to make people happy because that’s the only way I know how to make myself happy. In fact, I never felt truly happy until I was 9. Thats not to say the first 8 years of my life were miserable, they were fine: I had plenty of fun, I wasn’t antisocial, I had a good time... but that’s all it was, good. That all changed when suddenly, right in the middle of 4th grade, my friend’s minecraft server crashed and he wasn’t able to get it running again. I didn’t really like minecraft, but I did like hanging out with people without having to leave my room, so I took it upon myself to make my own server. I worked hard, built a computer tower, learned everything I could about networking, started up a server... and everyone loved it. I didn’t love it, you try defending your ip from hoards of crazy children who would love nothing more than to fill your computer with viruses and nazi propaganda, but the fact that my friend loved the server more than made up for all of that. After that moment, I knew the underlying goal of the rest of my life would be to repeat this type of scenario as much as possible They were really happy about something that I had done, not “oh that’s really cute” happy, but really happy. Knowing this made me feel on top of the world, and I didn’t want it to stop.
But it does stop, Clover knows this and tries to make the best of these situations. Before I met Clover, my solution to any problem I got stuck on was work at it even harder. I would stare at a math problem for hours and just will it to get finished, but only shortly after my family got Clover, I got to witness a new way of solving problems. Clover was trying really hard to get her favorite toy out from underneath a blanket, but because she didn’t have thumbs she was having a rough time. After several failed attempts she walked away, went outside and laid down in the sun. At first I thought she had given up, or had just gotten really tired, but after a few minutes she walked back inside and started digging at the blanket again. Clover didn’t succeed that time, or the next, or the next, but throughout the ordeal I noticed that she never seemed to get stressed out. Getting frustrated wasn’t helping, so every time she got angry she would take a minute to defuse and get her energy back. I tried this strategy out a while later, and to my surprise I was actually more productive! I changed my views on work after that, and now opt to take breaks whenever the struggle of learning becomes the struggle of wanting to smash your computer against the wall and burn your house down.
Clover shows even more great qualities when we go on walks. Even though she isn’t great with other dogs, she still tries to be friendly. She knows her boundaries though. If a dog (or person) looks like they don’t want to be approached, she’ll keep her distance. Although she’s initially very shy, clover warms up to other dogs easily and can become a great leader. She’s able to gain the respect of dogs twice her size (which is not an easy thing to do), but still knows when to step back and let others take control. She probably understands the concept of “step up, step back” better than most humans, myself included.
So when I get older, I want to be the type of person Clover is: friendly, confident, happy when others are happy, persistant (but never stressed), respectful, and a strong leader. As for material things, I’m not sure. My current plan for the future is to do as well as I can in school, go to UCSD or UC Berkeley, get a masters degree in engineering, and get a job at NASA. My uncle works at NASA as an astronomer and says it’s a great place to work, so I figure that’s what I’ll steer towards for now. However, my plans may change over time. The one thing I know for sure is what kind of person I want to be, and clover has taught me more about that than anyone else I know.