Character Analysis: Us And Them By David Sedaris

In his essay “Us and them,” David Sedaris describes his life as a child and how he ended up changing himself after realizing how disrespectful his behaviors were. While the boy is eating all of his candy so the neighbors do not get any, his mother barges in and screams “You should just look at yourself. I mean really look at yourself,” (Sedaris, ###) which prompted David to see how wrong he truly was. Much like the way David was acting in his essay when he was younger, I also had a time earlier on where I was harming myself due to my actions. During my middle school years, I was carefree. I never thought about how important my grades really were, and this put me in a bad position. After middle school came to a close, I joined an early college …show more content…
Each of the classes lasted a semester instead of a school year, and because of this, the workload increased dramatically. Every single student I saw had their grades in mind before anything else. My new friends and the others around me were doing all-nighters and trying to get every single point possible on their test corrections. This fierce atmosphere began to change the way I saw my academics. I no longer saw them as a waste of time, a waste of money, I saw my academics as a way to build my own path to a better future, one that could help me take care of my family when I am older. Due to this new way of viewing school, I was finally able to see how ignorant I truly was. I noticed how bad of a position I was putting myself now and in the future. I started to realize this about hallway into my freshman year, this is when I started trying. I did as many test corrections as I could and all of the extra credit assignments I could find. After a long and hard semester, I still ended up finishing my classes with all B’s, which I thought was a pretty decent …show more content…
This transition was enough to wear out every fiber of my being. The intense amount of homework combined with the students actually trying to gain something in their lives, I was able to learn a very valuable lesson. The actions we do in high school reflect how we are going to do after finishing our academics. I began to do my best on assignments and tests after I started realizing how important they truly were. Even though the enormous pressure being put on to me was wavering my resolve, I kept going with the thought of creating a good life for myself in mind. To the people who do not care about their studies or like to hurt people because they want to, it would be best for you to change your ways, your future depends on