There are countless ways to inspire someone. A person who inspires can have a great influence on a life. Someone who has influenced my life and inspires me is my sister, Lauren. I admire Lauren’s career, personality, and lifestyle.

Respectable careers can be appreciated by many. In general, I look up to teachers because their careers are about helping others, not just personal gain. One such teacher is Lauren. In Lauren’s first year of teaching, she had a student that spoke absolutely no English. “At first I was nervous,” Lauren admits. Since she was just out of college, she wasn’t sure how to tackle this dilemma. Nevertheless, the pupil was speaking English by the end of the school year. “It was amazing to see the joy in his face over being able to absorb the lessons,” Lauren explains, “just to see his laughter with the other kids, was just a great feeling, for both of us”. Lauren says that each child learns a bit differently, so one must teach in a variety of ways. According to Lauren, there’s always one kid each year you make a special connection with. “There’s always these little ‘a-ha’ moments when a child is struggling with something, and just gets it, and knowing I helped”. Being able to help students both educationally and emotionally is something I respect about Lauren. Because Lauren’s parents were divorced when she was very young, she could relate to her second graders whose parents were getting a divorce. She goes out of her way to say that she’s there for them, and talk about their feelings. Lauren believes that it really helps to talk about this sort of thing, and this also develops a closer bond between her students and herself. In the future, I want to be a teacher, and I believe Lauren has an influence on this. I love helping other people; I tutored last year, and hope to do the same this year. Another characteristic I think highly of in Lauren is her personality.

One personality trait of Lauren’s that I admire is her level-headedness. Being level-headed is something I value because I can be pretty hot-headed and impulsive at times. One example of my hot-headedness is when I was at my friend’s house. A family-friend’s birthday party was that afternoon, and we were running a little late leaving my friend’s house. Right before we were about to leave, his mom received a phone call. When she kept on talking and talking, I snapped at her about being late. She became exceedingly angry and I was grounded for a week when my parents found out. If I were
more sensible like Lauren, this probably wouldn’t have happened. Lauren would have either just let it go and have been a little late or perhaps she wouldn’t have even been at her friend’s house, knowing that she had something she had to attend and the mom might do something like that. An example of Lauren’s level-headedness that I especially admire is the “mold incident”. A classroom that Lauren was teaching in was infested with mold, but neither she nor the parents knew this. Kids were frequently sick with non-serious illnesses, but the mold affected Lauren’s health terribly. In fact, she became too sick to work. The school denied it at first, but the parents found out after Lauren left, that the classroom had seriously unsafe amounts of mold, which the school was keeping a secret. Only this summer did the school actually take effective action by tearing down the wing (it was later found the whole wing Lauren worked in was mold-infested) and rebuilding it. Everyone told Lauren she should sue the school, but she didn’t think it was worth it. She realized that taking on a school while she still wasn’t recovered would be extremely stressful, and the most important thing was that the parents found out and the problem was taken care of. “Most important was the health of the children and the health of myself was really more important than taking on a big lawsuit,” explains Lauren. When she thought about it, it was really more important to look to the future than to dwell on the past, for if we just dwelt on past happenings, no progress could ever be made. If I was in this position instead, things probably would have been worse. I probably would have taken on the school in court, which would probably turn the other surrounding schools off to me, and make it harder to get another job. Also, the stress would have been extremely unhealthy, especially if I was still recovering from a mold infection. One more thing I admire about Lauren is her lifestyle.

In my opinion, Lauren has one of the coolest lifestyles ever. She and her husband, Ian, live in an apartment on Union Street, San Francisco. “It’s the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to,” Lauren states, having just been asked why she loved San Francisco. “And her husband lives here,” adds Ian. “I love waking up every day and seeing so much sky”. While in most cities buildings are large and dominate the skyline, in San Francisco the buildings are mostly low, leaving the skies open for a magnificent view. She also loves to see the wind surfers on her evening walks. “How many people can say they can walk five minutes and see windsurfers?” she exclaims, referring to her routine walks in Crissy Fields National Park. Other reasons why she loves San Francisco are that she can walk everywhere, and there are superb views offered from the tops of the abundant hills. And, most importantly, “Everyone wants to visit!”. Which is true, in fact, my family and I were there just this summer. We had a wonderful time; Lauren was a brilliant host, always making sure we were entertained. Everyone was really sad when we had to return to New York, and we shared heartfelt goodbyes at the airport.

Lauren inspires me with her career, personality, and lifestyle. From helping others, to not losing her temper, Lauren is a terrific role model. I hope that I can follow her lead and be like her when I grow up. As articulated by Aja Graydon, “At the core of who we are is the roots of those that have influenced our lives the most and the impact of what they have exposed us to is always there and when the foundation is laid with love and commitment, our lives at some point will reflect that of which we have been taught”.