Personal Narrative: What Makes Me Statistically

Statistically, in an election between three or more people, any given candidate has a greater chance of losing than of winning. Along the same lines, if the same person were to run for several elections, this person statistically should be able to win at least one.

Well, the odds have never really been in my favor.

Up until ninth grade, failure was an unfamiliar concept. I enjoyed and excelled at what I did, and refused to step outside my comfort zone, assuming that unfamiliarity was often a slippery slope to downfall. Every day was the same as the one before – no risks, no rewards.

In March of my eighth grade year, I was offered admission to Miss Porter’s School, a private high school thirty minutes from home. I gladly accepted, ready to escape my provincial town of Glastonbury and start fresh in a new school. To me, part of this “starting fresh” involved establishing myself as somebody; after being dubbed “that weird smart

I was inundated with an unexpectedly heavy workload in even the first three weeks and ended up pulling my first all-nighter the day before speech day, beginning to compose my personal statement at around 2AM. I stumbled into the auditorium later that afternoon, bleary-eyed and exhausted, and slurred my way through the speech. Needless to say, I lost tragically, and my dreams of becoming the next Barack Obama were temporarily shattered.

However, I didn’t let this first loss slow me down. I continued to press forward, completing my sophomore class president speech weeks ahead of time and even laminating it several days before speech day in an effort to present myself in a professional light. Unfortunately, despite my copious preparation, I lost again. Devastated, I refused to speak to the new class president for about a week following the results; however, I eventually re-befriended the latter and vicariously threw myself into preparing for the following year’s