The Perspective of a Spoon

The majority of my time is spent lying in a dark, crowded drawer among the other silver ware. My stainless steel body, stacked neatly between the other spoons, is constantly being threatened by the razor sharp edges of the knives. In case you didn't know, the knives are relentless bullies of the silverware. They are constantly digging their steel edges into my sides and leaving small imperfections on my steel body. On the other hand, the forks are surprisingly nice. Due to the fact that they are the most popular utensil in the drawer, the forks are seldom crammed in the drawer with us and when they are, they are placed into stacks and mind their own business.

Breakfast time is when we spoons get the most use. At around 6 o'clock each morning, some grumpy high school kid shoves his grubby hands around my handle. My face is then dunked  into a bowl of cereal. While I'm engulfed in milk, i can hardly breathe and the entire time I'm hoping to be picked up again. Unfortunately, when I am picked back up I only have a short time to regain my breathe before I am shoved into the dirty mouth of a kid. The smell from inside the mouth is unbearable and the sensation of having a slimy tongue run down my body gives me shivers. I find that I'd rather spend my time face down in some milk. 

After the kid has finished his or her cereal, I'm shoved into a dishwasher with my spoon friends. This time we are not neatly stacked. Instead we are  shoved into a small compartment, where we are then rinsed by soap and scalding hot water, while at the same time be rattled around violently. 

Finally, the dishwasher cycle has run its course and I'm placed back into the pitch black drawer only to repeat the same process within the next couple of days.

The Ingredients of Enthusiasm: An Inquiry

In the past, the thing that has made me the most enthusiastic about learning is the discovery of an entirely new sea of information that I am unfamiliar with. An example that best explains this is the enthusiasm I had (and still have... for now) about lifting weights and becoming the strongest version of myself. I am very new to lifting weights, as you can easily tell by my lanky 6 foot 5 frame, but it is something i am really enthusiastic about. Ever since i began getting "huge", I find myself constantly researching new exercises, watching instructional videos online, and asking people I know about lifting. This desire to learn was most likely because weight lifting is something that I enjoy. I believe that for the enthusiasm to learn to be present, students must care about what they're learning about and have it be a passion of theirs.

A Bit on Courage

Courage can be found in a variety of forms. There's courage on a large scale, which includes examples like the brave men and women who helped victims of the marathon bombings, and there's courage on a smaller scale, which includes examples such as completing small personal feats. Despite any one person's view of what courage really is, courage is still courage no matter how small or large the scale. After thinking long and hard about my own experiences with courage, I realized that my life is incredibly risk free and boring. The first situation involving courage that came to my mind was obtaining a drivers license.
Obtaining a drivers license is no over night task. To obtain a license it requires 30 hours in a sweltering library with Mr. C, 6 hours sitting in the back of a car driven by one of your inexperienced piers, 12 hours driving with a stranger you have never met, 40 hours driving with your over anxious mother and a driving test that takes no longer than 5 minutes. Basically, if anyone wants a drivers license they need to have a lot of time, dedication and patience.
For me, obtaining a drivers license was very courageous because I lack good social skills. I put myself into situations i felt very uncomfortable in for numerous hours, and forced myself to wake up at 5am on a Saturday to show up at the QMS parking lot only to sit in a bus awkwardly for an hour and then to be judged by some stranger i have never seen before and will never see again. If the experience of obtaining a drivers licence taught me anything it would be that taking healthy risks is a positive experience. Oh, and also that if talking to people is considered courageous I need to put myself out there more often.