Career Discourse

C. 

I have never been the type to really enjoy classes or become overly interested in anything going on in the school room, I had always envisioned myself as a professional athlete. Nothing else had ever entered my head, it was always going to be tennis. Eighth grade is when that all changed. I walked into my biology classroom the second week of school, my last period of the day. At that point, any ability to listen had completely evaporated. My teacher was one of the school's football coaches, a good sign. Here was someone that would understand my absences and my real priorities. I sit down in the back with all my friends, planning on passing the period immersed in gossip. Two minutes until class starts, and the teacher is sitting at his desk,  not even acknowledging any of his students. Not that any of us minded. Then the bell rings, and he without pause strides to the front of the room and just smiles at us. "I know all of y'all are tired, so today I'm just going to tell a story" he says. All of the students look at each other uneasily, thinking we got a crazy teacher. Without a pause he launches into a story about a coconut. It sounds ridiculous, but all of us were so invested in this story. He made it dramatic and vivid. He made the story about the travels and growth of a coconut into a tree into a miracle. Then I realized, it was.  At the end of his story, after the coconut had dropped from the tree, been lifted by the tide and carried by the ocean to another beach where it would have room to grow, he asked us if we still thought biology was boring. One student raised his hand and asked "but that wasn't biology, that was just a story, right?" My teacher smiled and said "that was a story about life, and biology is life. Life is amazing and miraculous, so why shouldn't learning about it be?" Right then and there, my entire philosophy regarding my future changed. Yes, I still want to play professional tennis, but now I had other interests. Ultimately, this one class with an unbelievably inspiring teacher made me decide to go to college. I don't know if I will be majoring in biology just yet, but he opened my eyes to how fast and unbelievable the world around me really is. Surely in all the infinite possibilities in the world around me, there is something that will awaken my passion. If a coconut can undergo such a miraculous journey to find a home, surely I too can find a home in a career.