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Risk comes in many forms-exploring an idea, bridging a social divide, confronting one's fears. Reflect on a risk you have taken and introduce us to your thoughts.

This year I broke from the traditional school routine. Around the middle of my junior year I had figured out my senior schedule nicely, filling all those "requisites," that were only requisites in my head, not completely realising that, so far as the school was concerned, I only needed two classes to graduate my senior year. Around this time, I went on a ski trip with my church over spring break. Getting to talk with a friend of a friend who had come along, the subject of my passion came up, computer games, and the programming thereof. Through that discussion, I learned that she was taking a class that year at a special technical school that our two respective school districts shared on the subject of multimedia technology and the techniques involved in using computers to create various types of art, including, specifically, a project on the making of an actual game. At the time, I thought it sounded like a good deal, but that there wouldn't be any way to fit it into my schedule. After a few weeks had gone by, I decided that I needed to look into this program, and figure out if I could do anything to get into it. I had one hour, each semester, in the senior schedule in my head set up for courses that I would enjoy but which weren't necessary, so those went out the door rather quickly. After that, I saw no way to get another free hour in order to make room for the tech. program. I had my two required classes plus my math, science, foreign language, and computer programming classes, which were so much the staple of my previous high school schedules that I felt as though there was no option other than giving up on the dream. Upon agonied careful examination, I realised that, although the math and computer classes would aid me in my hopeful future career, Spanish and, especially, Chemistry II held no reason for appearing in my workload of the next year. Chemistry would not only -not- help me become any better a programmer, but it wouldn't even, so far as I could manage to see, significantly aid me in my general life. That being decided, I took a short jaunt down to the counselors' office, only to find that I had just missed the deadline for enrolling in the program. I was told I could try for late admission, but that there wasn't any certainty that they would even consider it. Not to be daunted, I took the application home, wrote a short paragraph about why I wanted to be in the class, and found out a few weeks before senior year started (after I had given up all hopes) that I had made the program. With that, I started a new school year with hope. Upon my primary attempts to pass through the school day, I discovered that I ended up arriving late to my other class every day, as my fifth hour class at my school ended one minute before class started at the tech. centre, situated about 15 minutes away, which also meant that I was denied lunch every day. After about a week it was decided that the situation was ridiculous, and I had to either drop another one or pick up two more classes at my school. Already being exposed to the class, I went all the way and decided that I could take two of my semester classes as independent studies. So, starting out following the mold of previous years, I have been lead to taking an in-depth course on my favourite subject and completely ignoring those conventions which had ensnared me unto the very beginnings of my senior year.

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