Midori- prompt #2
The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
My one big failure of my life was made while I was swimming in a pool. It’s been 5 years since then, and I still remember it very clearly.
When I was in 6th grade, my first tournament of swimming happened. I had swimmed for 8 years already. I can still recall that tournament in my head, vividly. I saw audiences, standing and sitting and cheering for the children, I saw the pool, I saw all the other coaches standing beside their swimmers. I was confident, but nervous. My coach stood right behind me, and advised me before I swam, that “everyone’s nervous, take your breath, don’t think too much”. I remembered those words correctly until now, but not in that swim. I forgot everything as soon as the race started.
As soon as the whistle was blown, eight swimmers jumped in the pool. My head went blank. It went really fast. I was heated up, trying to breathe so quickly, that when I finished my butterfly strokes, I couldn’t believe it. It felt like it finished in few seconds. As a result, I was placed 6th out of 8. I rushed too much, my swim was way out of pace, and I was tired as a stone. It was done. I was ashamed how I swam, how I didn’t know other swimmers swam so fast and good.
The tournament remained bitter in me. For a couple of days I was depressed of my failure. Then I noticed how I grew in some way. My time has improved, faster than any swim before. Surrounded from other faster swimmers, I lost my pace, I reached the goal perplexedly, and recorded the best time ever.
My swimming career started when my father took me to a swimming club. It was my very first experience in sport. Although I started reluctantly, it went on for 13 years, and is still going on currently. Now, water is my best company. Swimming is a habit for me now, that keeps me constantly unstressed, healthy, and enjoying. It also has taught me a lot of things, like lessons. Keeping my own pace is very important. Calmness too. Also practice. Then the most important: there are always something positive born from a failure. Just like growth.
Currently, I am a highschool student in an International school. I lived all my life in Japan, surrounded by multicultural friends and teachers. I speak two different languages, have met dozens of nationalities. Traveled to varieties of regions, experienced many kinds of projects. And yet, I know that there are lot more, out there in the world. That is very fascinating for me.
My future is still vague, but one thing that I strongly wish for is to travel around the world, to see even more “unknowns”. I hope that when achieving my dream, I would experience many failures as that tournament. And after building up all the things I would learn from them, I would become a focused, flexible-minded and collaborating grown-up, traveler.
When I was in 6th grade, my first tournament of swimming happened. I had swimmed for 8 years already. I can still recall that tournament in my head, vividly. I saw audiences, standing and sitting and cheering for the children, I saw the pool, I saw all the other coaches standing beside their swimmers. I was confident, but nervous. My coach stood right behind me, and advised me before I swam, that “everyone’s nervous, take your breath, don’t think too much”. I remembered those words correctly until now, but not in that swim. I forgot everything as soon as the race started.
As soon as the whistle was blown, eight swimmers jumped in the pool. My head went blank. It went really fast. I was heated up, trying to breathe so quickly, that when I finished my butterfly strokes, I couldn’t believe it. It felt like it finished in few seconds. As a result, I was placed 6th out of 8. I rushed too much, my swim was way out of pace, and I was tired as a stone. It was done. I was ashamed how I swam, how I didn’t know other swimmers swam so fast and good.
The tournament remained bitter in me. For a couple of days I was depressed of my failure. Then I noticed how I grew in some way. My time has improved, faster than any swim before. Surrounded from other faster swimmers, I lost my pace, I reached the goal perplexedly, and recorded the best time ever.
My swimming career started when my father took me to a swimming club. It was my very first experience in sport. Although I started reluctantly, it went on for 13 years, and is still going on currently. Now, water is my best company. Swimming is a habit for me now, that keeps me constantly unstressed, healthy, and enjoying. It also has taught me a lot of things, like lessons. Keeping my own pace is very important. Calmness too. Also practice. Then the most important: there are always something positive born from a failure. Just like growth.
Currently, I am a highschool student in an International school. I lived all my life in Japan, surrounded by multicultural friends and teachers. I speak two different languages, have met dozens of nationalities. Traveled to varieties of regions, experienced many kinds of projects. And yet, I know that there are lot more, out there in the world. That is very fascinating for me.
My future is still vague, but one thing that I strongly wish for is to travel around the world, to see even more “unknowns”. I hope that when achieving my dream, I would experience many failures as that tournament. And after building up all the things I would learn from them, I would become a focused, flexible-minded and collaborating grown-up, traveler.
503 words
Reflective Paragraph
The three changes I made in this draft were fixing word choices, changing order of ideas, and clarifying my message. Changing word choices, also grammar, made my voice stronger and clearer. Fixing order of ideas and clarifying my message both worked to make my idea more dramatic, also to emphasize details to make my whole idea clear.