M ico Carpiniello

nevertheless. On the flight to H angzhou, I felt unease. ?H as m y tim e in Am erica m ade m e unable to endure the intensity of China?s exam -oriented education?W ill I be suspended??Throughout the eighteen-day program , m y unease intensified. The teachers could expel students for subjective reasons such as attitude and objective causes such as poor scores. As days passed, seats all around m e started to em pty, often with no warning or explanation. Although I continued to worry, I also began to feel encouraged. I was one of the fifty percent of the original class to survive. I slept less than four hours each night in order to com plete m y hom ework, suffering from im m ense drowsiness during classes. I wondered when the Sword of Dam ocles would fall. It never did. I graduated from the hellish institution with unprecedented confidence, resilience, and pride. Not only did the ordeal helped m e recognize m y true capacity, it also helped m e to avoid underestim ating m yself in the future.

As a Chinese student in the U.S., I found it difficult to obtain self-confidence. During m y first years at Friends Central, I felt that the school was too foreign for m e, and the experience was far out of m y com fort zone. Despite this, I was supported by the encouragem ent and praise from students and teachers, who helped m e recognize the true value of m y effort. I value the confidence I gained from the SAT training institution. I am proud that I was not one of the people who were crushed by the pressure and fled the training cam p. I am proud that I was able to graduate while m any other determ ined students from com petitive Chinese schools failed to com plete their training. On the other hand, confidence without com petence is useless. In the future, I will strive to becom e som eone who m akes im provem ents constantly through diligence and confidence.

I decided to incorporate color contrast by im posing the Ukrainian flag onto a m ap of the world. This is to sym bolize the effect that the war in Ukraine has had on the entire world, and how it has both drawn people together and split them apart. I outlined the country of Ukraine in red and added som e dripping blood to show the suffering of the m any people living there under the war conditions. - M ico Carpiniello