Blogaday 19 of 20

Day 19. Wow.

Banking on the Jello. I am banking on the Jello.

I had this epiphany of sorts earlier this evening. Suddenly, the idea of banking on the Jello sounded incredibly brilliant. I had it all figured out in my head. I was going to make that the theme of the next semester, the next segment of my life. So I came here and threw down that first line, the one that you see in bold. I couldn't wait to start talking about it, I had to at least get that far. I wrote it then went back to work on this Micron action.

I revised my essay, the second of four times I'm planning on that one, and I worked on my activities list and all that. As I was wrapping up, I decided to google the micron scholarship and see what there was out there.

What I found scared all manner of apparel off of me. I found the bios of last years winners. Holy crap. Mutants, all of them. Every single one of them doing crazy things incredibly well. Research project after research project after research project. What's that, you've had your papers published by universities? Yeah, well I'm freaking president of the Ultimate club that doesn't do anything, what now?!

Yeah, just like that. How am I supposed to stand up to that? I've never been in any form of a science fair since the sixth grade. I did go to the state math competition. Three times. But I didn't win, like all of them did. I don't have two degrees from BYU yet, like last years big winner did. I've never been to anything outside of Utah, let's be honest. I've not gone to anything at the Universities here, and I haven't gone and used MIT's amazing labs to do something insane.

Mutants, that's the only explanation I can find.

And I was hopeful, oh so hopeful. Probably too hopeful. And now a lot of that is gone. My science and math activities list has five activities on it, and most of those are AP chemistry. all of theirs had a billion.

My dangerously inflated hopes have been seriously cut back. There were massive lay-offs in the hopes division. Economic crisis, really.

I will finish and submit the application. I will do the very best job that I can. I'm not going down without a fight. It's just that now the fight is with Chuck Norris, and not the little girl down the street like I thought.

But you know, I'm not going quietly. Because I believe in myself. Me and Kyle talked a bit tonight, about how hard it is to write a paper saying, "Hey, check me out. I deserve for you to give me 25,000 dollars over four years, and here's why..." And maybe I don't really deserve the scholarship. There's an outside chance that I do, but chances are that I wouldn't be an incredible investment for Micron like some of the mutants out there will be.

But straight up, there's something inside of me. I know, deep down, that I'm special, and that I'm going to pull it off. I'm not positive what it really is right now, but I'm going to make it happen. I will be successful out there. It's inside of me. I might not be teaching professors about bioacoustics, and I might not have my own parking space at MIT, but I've got something incredibly important inside of me.

I am not the nerd you are looking for, Micron.

But I am going to change the world.

And that's the realization tonight. That I'm not really all that and a bucket of cheese. My resume doesn't come close to matching up to theirs. I can't back it up with documentation, but I know that I've got it. I can't pretend to be on that level. I can't pretend to be the guy at the science fair, because that's not me.

But you know what? I've got the Jello. And they'll never, ever, ever have the Jello like I've got the Jello.

That's right. I'm banking on the Jello.

Do you remember the Jello story? Do you remember how important the Jello story is to me? Do you remember what we proved that day?

There are two sides to the Jello story. Both relate to the way I perceive my worth as an individual. One is more of a "guilty by association" style relation, so we're not going to talk about it here tonight. Just know that it's incredibly important to me.

The second side of the Jello story is proof. Cold and gelatinous proof that I've got it.

Is now the time to truly tell the Jello story? I should have written about it before, I might have even written about it here. I based my science sterling scholar paper on it.

I don't think that now is the time to go into the details. But know that they're triumphant. And know that they proved something to me on that fine June day. Know that I proved to myself that I had it in me.

It was an incredibly symbolic moment for me. It meant that what I was doing with my life wasn't a waste of time. It showed that my attitude toward life and school and everything around me was paying off. It showed that there was hope in this world for me. It showed that I could be successful, and it showed me how to do it.

That is my history. That symbolic moment encapsulates my theory and plan for the rest of my professional career. The principles that governed success with the Jello will govern success for the rest of my life.

And that unique history is my story. It is me. I cannot pretend to be anybody but myself. I have an unique set of abilities and skills and talents. I have a unique set of weaknesses and follies too. I am who I am.

I'm banking on the Jello. And if the Jello represents who I am, I'm finally banking on the right thing. I have to run, full speed ahead, into what's coming for me. And when it gets here, I have no option but to bank on the Jello. To believe in myself as a person, and to tackle that problem using what I've been given. There is nothing else to do.

Jello has gotten me this far. Jello is all that I've got. There's no more question about what to do here. I've got to bank on the Jello.