Those that know me know that I am anything but perfect. My mother is never afraid to let me know how she feels, even when her bluntness is often quite unappealing to me and just creates even more cracks in our 'relationship'. Its not that I don't love my family because I do. I love the way my mothers at times cruel remarks hide the frustration of a woman whose ability to be selfless and more then kind, is never returned to her in quite the manner that she gives it. I love my father, and his laziness. His passiveness and ability to fall asleep during a conversation never ceases to amaze me, especially when he starts snoring in church. Even though he is a high school drop out and works at a job he hates that pays him just a cent over nothing, he is never bitter about it. He accepts his life as it is and moves on. Then there is my 10 year old sister and my 13 year old brother. Or monkey see and monkey do as I like to call them. Their endless bickering is a constant reminder of my lost childhood. I love how although one night they may be sticking gum in each others hair as they sleep, they never seem to want to stay away from each other. It's as if there is some sort of indestructible magnetic pulling them towards one another. Then there is me. I love myself. I love how I am the byproduct of the imperfections of the people I love. I love the way I can get distracted by facebook while doing my homework and the way I laugh at people in class when they say something so ridiculous, even though they are trying to come off as 'intelligent'. I am absolutely infatuated with my never ending patience for people I absolutely can not stand, and my at sometimes inappropriate bluntness with the people I adore. I love the irony of my class schedule. The way I love the teachers of the classes I absolutely hate and hate the teachers of the classes I absolutely love. The one thing I can't help but to love is my ability to talk about myself and know that I am not being conceited, just honest. Even though I may not be that student in the front of the class who breaks out the halo at the beginning of the period nor the daughter who makes her parents proud with each breathe she takes. And even though I may not be the friend you confide everything in and give that silly best friend bracelet to at Christmas. Even though I may be that person you see sitting in the back of the school library finishing up her essay the period before its due, one thing is for certain. I am that honest, down to earth, loyal and goofy girl that you see everyday. I am the girl whose erratic mother talks about her at work whether or not I do the right thing. I am the girl whose father kisses her on the forehead just before he leaves for his crappy job at 2 in the morning. I am the girl whose younger sister tells her friends she copied her hair style off of in the morning, and whose brother told his friends what to give a girl for her birthday. I'm that friend you have who even though at times annoys you, you are always there for because she never fails to be there for you. When I said I was the byproduct of imperfections I wasn't exaggerating. I am probably the least perfect person I know, which makes me even more qualified to attend college. College is the place where all the imperfects like me go because we are searching for something more. We are looking for the place where reason and emotion can fuse together to create a world that makes more sense then the one we are used to. The place that shapes us into that thoughtful old man who lives in the apartment next to you, but you never talk to because he seems a bit crazy. News flash! He's not crazy he's just had a life full of experiences that you missed out on. He went to college and learned to love. He loved his roommate when he stumbled in drunk at 3 in the morning, knocking over soda all atop his 1000 word analytical essay about Charles Darwin. He loved leaping out of bed in his pajamas every morning to go to class and talk about the 500 page book they were reading about the economy. And even though till this day he never figured out why money is such an issue because after all it is just paper and can be mass produced, he remains content. And he loved the quiet girl in the back of the library who always finished her essay the period before it was due. But the most important thing of all that he loved in college, the thing that he appreciates more then even life itself till his last dying breathe, is that he learned. Without college he never would have learned, he never would have been able to become that open minded being he is today and know that knowledge is something that is all around us and doesn't necessarily come straight from a book. It is something that creeps up on us in our dreams and experiences. They make the driven, intellectual, and witty person that inevitably becomes the success story that everyone wishes to be. I may not be this man that I speak of, but one day I hope to be. Not via sex change operation of course, but via mind altering experience. Hopefully, I'll be everything that everybody never knew I was or had the potential to be and I will owe it all to college, because it molded me into a student and global citizen, the way I was molded into the imperfect girl by my family, which I am more then proud of. I am embrace my imperfections because I know that when I look in the mirror through my imperfect eyes, I seem just perfect to me.