If I were the "typical" student, the ones that work hard enough to just get by, then I wouldn't be at home typing away at the computer. Instead, I would be at a friend's place, partying late into the night, brandishing fake IDs to get smashed, driving at twice the speed limit, and scheming to rob the local bank. My days would be aimless, my nights equally lost, my past forgotten, and my future haphazard like a matchstick house. Fortunately, my foundations are not built with plywood but metal mined in school hallways and forged by volunteerism.

Isn’t it odd how anyone with a working mind tends to learn information absent from his or her textbooks? I distinctly remember my pages being devoid of social rules and methods to develop discipline, critical thought, and personal confidence, yet I know these lessons as well as I know the alphabet. From kindergarten I learned that being courteous reaps benefits greater than gold behavior stars, just as sympathy and sensitivity develop after the death of childish gender wars in the sandbox. Who knew that monkey-bar etiquette would be the solution to successful leadership in high school, where I took charge of numerous group projects and became president of the local Asian Pacific Club?

To dismiss the past four years of study as an exercise in “everything I need to know I learned in preschool” would be inaccurate to say the least. Preschool does not prepare you for the nights of studying and hundreds of pages read weekly for all of your AP level classes. Preschool fails to explain how Hemingway abuses his Christ symbolism in much of his writing and glosses over practical applications of Newton’s Method. Nor do they mention the benefits of coffee, but I doubt parents would let their kids drink java before puberty. No--I learned from my first almost B that insomnia, not procrastination, is the path of the valedictorian, but it is a welcome burden to the perpetually curious mind. Why else would anyone write an extra-curricular essay well past midnight?

Passion would be the appropriate answer. Passion and intrinsic drive. My “wasteful” interest in the visual arts, as my parents so gently named it, prompted my enrollment at one of Clark County’s top magnet schools where both academic and artistic curriculum require hours of additional work outside of the seven hour school day. Oil paint and essays seem to share reluctance for completion in a timely manner. In turn exhilarating and often exhausting, my intensive studies in both intellectual and emotional fields provide a well-rounded viewpoint of the world and its people. Naturally, I would want to share as much of my gifts with the community. Another kindergarten moral that won’t go away.

Let’s face it: half of the people doing community service are buffering their college and scholarship applications. Even when I worked with Catholic Charities during my pre-Confirmation years, the lessons of the gospel they tried to instill in me were glossed over. Instead, I created my own rules and lessons from the time I spent volunteering: First, don’t help people to get that nice sense of well being; that’s patronizing. Second, spend your time helping a cause you are sure will benefit others; giving a man a Big Mac is often more helpful than a benefit where 90% of the proceeds pay for costs. Lastly--unless you are agreeable--benefit your own neighborhood, not another’s; preps in the ghetto will not sympathize with those seeking help, and vice versa. However, don’t let my sarcastic tone betray the lessons I did learn from my hours of creating gift-baskets; without that experience I would not have the appreciation for the things that I possess.

Well grounded, appreciative, and never lacking in wit, my foundations are now waiting to be built upon. Anticipate a skyscraper sometime in the near future.