This I believe...

This I believe that working hard can help reach goals. Freshman year, Cindy persuaded me to join the Science Olympiad team at my previous high school. For some reason or another, I came to the first meeting on a Thursday after school, expecting to be bored to death but the variety of events drew me in. I decided to do three events Anatomy, Disease Detectives, and Experimental Design. Soon after I wrote my name on Anatomy sign up sheet, the club leader handed me the heaviest and biggest textbook I've ever seen. I was intrigued by all the colorful images but reading the text itself? That was the hard part. On my first competition for anatomy I barely knew any of the answers, in that one hour so much anger had built up inside of me because I didn't study well enough the night before.

This motivated me to push myself harder to learn for my Science Olympiad. Science Olympiad is about wanting to learn something outside of school. Though this might sound ridiculous I enjoy the club most of the year. Except the night before the competition where I try to relearn everything in one night, it’s almost like having an extra final on a Saturday. As a junior in high school I truly tried to study for the exam during the autumn so when the time comes for the competition I won’t need to do all nighters. As I was taking the test the anatomy test last Saturday I was surprised at the ease I could find the answers. It was as if the answers were written on the test itself.

Sitting at the medal ceremony with my team I waited until they finally announced the scores for anatomy. That one minute seemed to last forever because they would state who won the bronze, the silver and finally the gold. Squeezing my partners’ hand we waited to hear our names to be called for third place, they didn’t say it. I squeezed harder only hoping to get a silver medal, but another team one that. Never have one first place I was sure that that we must have lost and didn’t even score in the top three. But then I heard my school names said aloud. At once my partner and I jumped from disbelief. All the studying that I did before the event had really helped me achieve my goal.