Coming of Age: Learning Experience Final Draft

My Experience: "RAHHHHHHHH!!!!" My glare at the computer was deadly. I swear, if I had telekinesis, I would have probably blown it up! At that moment, I wish it did.... No, didn't, I was more angry at myself for not doing, the thing I really needed to do the most! I needed to focus! There were claw marks and nail indentations running down my arms. Papers were all over the floor, and the feeling of my brain being all over the place is starting to get to me. I couldn't keep up with the thoughts that were going 3000 miles per hour in my head. It was like slamming into the side of my skull causing me the migraines of a life time. I was typing the little bits and pieces, notes and phrases. Oh thank god it was only a PowerPoint! Taking the Tylenol didn't help, and just getting up to taking it made me feel dizzy and made my head worse.... My nose was stuffy and my head felt as if it out weighed the rest of my body. My body almost couldn't be supported by my legs. I think it was either the lack of sleep from staying up and studying and using the Faulkes Telescope. Either way, it didn't help me with my presentation. There are going to be very important people there, Ms. Kusunoki (Spark Director), Ms. Kadooka (HI STAR Director), a guy from the DOE, the mentors.... and people who were paying for the program..... This presentation was an important presentation for next morning and Ms. Kadooka had told us the severity of it all week. Me and my partner didn't get the work done in time to finish. She actually went to sleep because she knew that I was paying attention and she wasn't. I was okay with working alone, I do it a lot. It just wasn't fine that she left me without even finishing her reflection at the end of the presentation.... I'm sitting on the working floor in the dorm racking my brain, screeching quietly and talking to myself, trying looking through pages and pages of notes. My hair is in a messy bun, cold sweat is dripping from my face and my eyes are trying to watch the screen but they keep refocusing because they kept seeing black. My room mate is sleeping on her bed, while listening to Taylor Swift, trying to drown out the noisy fan blowing warm air around the room trying to cool it off. I'm stuck there, with the light on on my side of the room, listening to the spinning gears of the fan, and the thoughts that somehow gained voices in my head, and trying to make sense of it. My heart felt like it was beating faster and faster than usual and my eyes started getting out of focus. A wave of heat just hit me and the room just felt like it was moving out of control. I think,... I think I just had an anxiety attack... I couldn't focus to the point where I was getting angry at myself for not. I did everything I could to stay awake and finish, even if it meant scratching and piecing my nails into my skin me to keep the voices quiet for even a moment and let me focus on one. I was almost done at 4am but crashed. I woke up with my alarm at 6:45am, woke up my computer and finished typing by 7. Unfortunately, it wasn't a good morning, but I sucked it up like I always do. Doggie bagged breakfast, finalized everything with my partner and pretty much bit her head off while going over the presentation. I had to track her down like a Hound Dog, while I was still in my pajamas and flip flops. She wasn't really on my good side... My partner crammed her reflection during breakfast. By the time I was done with everything, I had 5 minutes to meet everyone in the lobby and walk to the theater, nearly forgetting the flash drive. My mentor Mr. Bj knew that I was up late working on the PowerPoint, and actually told me I looked terrible. I came there in wet hair, puffy eyes, a runny nose and suffering a minor case of Delirium from lack of sleep. Too bad I was the one who had to say everything. Lucky me. I made the "majority" power point :P and I understood all of it.... She did demonstrations... She had the fun part. Although, I don't think after that night I could have ran around with a Doppler ball, so she can have it. I had a lot of fun laughing at her though. I mean, can you imagine an almost platinum blond running around with a screeching ball? The projector just bounced off her head and it looked like it glowed in that theater. In our shake effect thingy, I forgot wat it was called, because of the gravity... Yeah, I won't go into detail. Lets just say, she's very tall and heavy and I almost fell on her during a presentation because she pulled on me too hard. Everything went pretty well. Could have done better with a more thorough run through together and a non-runny nose, but aside from that, I think it was good. The Delirium added personality! While participating in HI STAR, I now fully understood the stress of a more challenging school. I guess you could say, it made me work harder, and I felt the pressure of everything, and the need to be great. I was really passionate for what I learned, and understood the need to make a good impression. I loved it! I loved presenting something that I was passionate for! I heard the same thing over and over again "You really glowed!" and I believe them. I found something that I was passionate for, and learned that the road to it is really hard and rocky. You have to learn to work under pressure and work well. Perseverance and passion is something that you'd really need if you plan to work with it in the long run. Oh! and sleep helps too! A lot! and organization skills if you have any. With this project, I learned that had to really grow up, because that's really the only way you can succeed, right? This was a giant step in my academic career and I learned a lot from it, and how I really need to change. But really how I needed to grow up.