The purpose of the personal essay in english was to take our personal statment and the symbol we chose from our media piece (can be seen on podcast page) and write an essay about what the statment means to us. Through this essay we showcase how we think and what is the most crucial aspect of our lives.

We enhanced the essay to make it more visually appealing to the viewer. To enchance it, we used Adobe Flash. First, I used garage band and recorded myself saying my essay. I then saved my recording as an MP3 and imported it to the flash library. Then I found pictures on google images and also imported them to the flash library. For each scene I added the approriate recorded paragraph and the correlating images. For scenes with at least two images I inserted a key frame wher I wanted the second image to be and then imported that image. Finally I added text to the opening scene and and music that faded in and out.

The Greatest Meditation of All Time

My prison cell awaits. Complete with steel bars of stress and iron chains of anxiety. I’m shackled to my desk and whipped with math facts. After what feels like months I hear a tune: nothing that could live up to any superficial standard, but a cry of relief to my ear. An eagle flies in, a heavenly glow about him. He reveals the joys of world to me. Everything is pouring into my mind. The eagle seems to smile at me and leaves. I feel the shackles break and I am free. The work isn’t a prison and I reach a sense of calmness. Sometime you need that little five minutes of relief, and for me, when those times come, I say, “when in doubt, dance party”.

 Dancing gives me a sense of zen and I can concentrate much better on my work after I dance. Do you know how helpful dancing would be when taking a french test? Instead I have to try to cram every single verb and noun into my memory along with how to find limits in a math equation, why the American Civil War happened and what happened after, and the second soprano part for Ave Maria. I also need to remember over 160 counts of flag work for color guard, the dance step in figure skating, and to pick up milk on the way home from school. I barely get a chance to breath most days. Take Tuesdays, for example. On Tuesdays I have to go to school and memorize what feels like useless facts, then rush over to color guard practice and epically fail at the parallel toss over and over. Trying to do something that all of your friends can do but you can’t is really frustrating. Sometimes I want to crawl up in to a ball and sleep for a little bit. However, life keeps moving on, but for one minute, one wonderful minute, I get a chance to forget about the responsibilities of life.

 I plug in my phone to the speakers on my desk, and turn on my music. Sound comes blaring out. Once in a while mom says it’s too loud, and asks me to turn the volume down. Although I usually don't follow her advice. I search for my favorite song, “Na Na Na” by My Chemical Romance. I hit play and wait for the beat to drop. Without much thought I’ll start jumping around and grooving with the song, often singing along, and pretending to strum with the guitar solo. I suddenly forget all the details I’m supposed to remember and enter a world of pure bliss and satisfaction. What was the limit of f(x) when x approaches the positive side of 3 in the graph, f(x)=(3x^3+10x-35)/(x-2)? I don’t know. In those brief moments, I don’t particularly care. In those brief moments, everything stops. My mind sorts through all the loose papers and things I thought I threw out years ago. I become anyone I want to be. Was someone supposed to save me from a dragon guarded tower? I escaped out the back window. Nothing else in the word matters except right then and there.

 Of course the song ends, and I have to get on with the tasks of the day. That’s okay though, because thanks to all the sorting my brain did while dancing, I have a clearer mind and a more positive mind set while working. I feel a lot better and those french conjugations and history facts don’t seem like as big of a deal anymore. That parallel toss doesn't seem so hard, and skating becomes second nature. I wonder why I was so stressed in the first place. Then my dog will run into my room and jump on my bed. I smile and pet her. She looks at me the way a child looks at a balloon: with complete wonder and joy. She is my little eagle, swooping in when I need it most. She seems to say “Don’t worry. It is going to be okay. Life is Great!”. I smile. Yes, my little eagle life is great. And when a dance party is involved, it becomes something even better.