Carl Rosenthal

I think that the most important thing in life to remember is to not be afraid to try new things.

My first memory of school was about the first day of kindergarten. For an hour during the day, the class could play with their freinds and use toys from a number of bins, each with its own kind of toy. One of my friends and I found a smaller bin which had several small rubber-and-plastic turtles. We had a great time with them, and we asked the teacher if we could take them home for a day. It turns out that we were the first kids in a long time to use them, and she was planning on tossing them out at the end of the year anyways, so she let us keep them! This teacher and especially my fifth grade teacher, with their unsual yet very enjoyable teaching methods, have had perhaps the most lasting and signifigant impressions out of all the teachers I have ever had.

Throughout elementary school, I made many friends each year but usually didn't see them again until middle school, as my family moved often. When we finally settled down, I had only one year of elementary schooling left. Fortunately, as I said earlier, many of my friends were going to the ame middle school as me, so when I was in sixth grade, I knew people from four different schools. Surprisingly, I have never known any "true" bullies, even after going to four schools!

I have one sibling whom I have the pleasure of sharing my life with, my brilliant older brother Alan. Both my mother and father are software engineers, working at BAE Systems and Google, respectively. My father's words of wisdom to me, most often, were "get your work done first", as many parents undoubtedly say. He also remarks, from time to time, that the world is driven mostly by fear and greed, which I find very interesting.

I am generally very cheerful and enjoy chatting with my friends and family, although I tend to see the bad aspects of a person more than I belive normal to, and also wish to change my tendancy to hold grudges rather easily, which I have found to be a great way not to get along with others! I also have learned that often I limit myself my my reluctance to try new things, and have found that it is very important to always be open to new and often drastically different ways about thinking of and doing things.

My goals for the rest of my time in middle school are to maintain a 4.0 GPA, make good friends, and leave good impressions on my teachers. During high school, thes