Sunday, October 9, 2011

Fatima is an impatient person.


pa·tience [pey-shuhns]
noun
1. The quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.
2. An ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner.
3. Quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience.


Hmmm. Looking at these definitions, I cannot claim that I am a patient person. Often times, I become bratty, and in the mindset of "I-want-this-right-this-very-minute-gimme-gimme-gimme." But that's almost just human nature...right? Or at least the nature of teenagers. Let's look at a couple of stories. 

1. The quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

Well. This is most certainly not true, sadly. The "without complaint" most directly makes it so, and I'm not proud to say it. Over the summer, my brother was trying to test out of seventh and into eighth grade math, so that he would be able to get ahead. I offered to help tutor him so I could help out my parents, and they even offered to pay me if he did well. 

The first couple of days were great. We would go over a couple of lessons, I'd give him some homework, and we'd be done. Soon, however, things started going not-so-well. You see, my brother has this really irritating habit of making a joke out of everything, and finding everything funny. It might have something to do with the fact that he's 12. One day, I glanced back at his paper to see how he was working to find:


That's right. Parenthesis Man. He was giggling over it like it was the funniest thing he had ever seen, while I looked more like this. There were many fights and insults and anger, and to just put it simply, it was not a pretty picture of patience. 

2. An ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner.
A beautiful example of this would be when you're at an amusement park. Amusement park. Not wow-I'm-so-glad-I-spent-all-this-money-only-to-have-it-all-gone-to-waste-because-of-lines-of-horrendous-lengths park. When my family and I were in Florida a couple weekends ago, going to Disney World we had the fantastic opportunity of experiencing this. People were jam packed walking throughout, and one ride in particular had a line that drove us insane. We waited what seemed like forever in this line (hyperbole, right?). The only thing that made it okay was Mr. Potato Head was entertaining us. 

3. Quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience.
Let me think...oh, I have one. Over the summer for AP Lit, we had to read as well as annotate the book Emma by Jane Austen. The main character was not one I was too fond of, and she definitely did things that make me dislike her immensely. I think I will just let my picture do the talking for this definition. 
Three strikes, you're out!

I am not a patient person. (I really hope this changes...)

1 comment:

  1. Fatima. I laughed out loud (LOL'd, if you will) about seven different times while reading this. Parenthesis man? Awesome. Also, I hate Jane Austen books so I feel your pain, and I quite enjoyed your post-it annotation.

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