Greetings!
College Tuition Assistance Students: Here's a fun story. It really happened to me, just a few weeks ago. It will be posted on the CollegeEssayMentor.blogspot.com blog, and you are welcome to check it out and make a comment!
Read it especially if you're feeling a little overwhelmed by all these applications!
Five Bites and Eight Triangles
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to bring my cousin's children home with me a for a few hours at the end of a four week holiday while he and his wife spent some time alone in Salt Lake City before they went home to England the following day. We really had fun. Since I met them downtown Salt Lake City, we rode Trax in the free zone, and we visited the lobby of the Clark Planetarium which has a giant pendulum and the coolest marble-works-type contraption you've ever seen (the photo in the link doesn't do it justice).
After we drove back to my house we made personal pizzas. I figured that if I only got to have these five children in my home once every two years, we would make it memorable. Everyone liked the idea of pizza except the middle child - and only boy. Samuel informed me that he doesn't like anything except peanut butter and jelly. His sisters corroborated. I asked him if strawberry jam was okay, and he said it was his favorite. He's only about as tall as the top of my kitchen counter, but he also really wanted to make his own sandwich.
Well, I was busy making pizza dough and pizza sauce and chopping up toppings, so I thought that was a grand idea. I gave him a plate, a knife, and two slices of homemade bread. He went to work. I watched out of the corner of my eye. It was a labor of love! He put peanut butter and jam on both sides of the sandwich, and it was thick! When he finally decided he might be done, I quietly spread it to the edges and squished it together. The crust had to come off. Then I asked if he wanted it cut. "Eight Triangles" was his answer, so eight triangles he received!
I went back to my pizza preparation. One of his younger sisters amazed me! She wanted everything, including peppers and mushrooms, on her pizza. Six pizzas went into the oven, and I had time to look around. Lo and behold, Samuel's sandwich was still sitting there!
"Sam, don't forget to eat your sandwich."
"Oh, I'm not very hungry," said he in his charming English accent.
I put on my stern voice. "Sam," I quipped, "Go sit down and eat five bites right now!"
He went to sit down, and I busied myself with the next batch of pizza that would be going into the oven soon.
With my five children, and my five little cousins, there was a lot of activity in that kitchen. The next time I saw him, I followed up. "Sam, did you eat five bites?"
"Yes! I ate the whole thing," he said.
Suddenly, Sam was my hero. He had eaten the whole thing, even when he had only gone in for five bites.
I realized that I need to quit seeing the whole sandwich all the time. When I'm overwhelmed with Eight Triangles, especially with the crust cut off and enough peanut butter and jam for three sandwiches, I can always start with just five bites. That's not so hard. And who knows! Maybe I'll look down soon and the plate will be empty!
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