While I can relate to Scibona’s writing in the past, I can relate to Rahmani’s essay in the present and the near future. In order to support this, I will first describe my intellectual home in detail. Second I will explain how both writings relate to me and my intellectual home. Lastly, I will explain how my intellectual home will help me succeed in life.

My intellectual home consists of a mixture of place and process with no people. I am the biggest procrastinator I know. With that being said my process for my intellectual home is that I normally wait a day or two before an assignment is due to begin. The pressure and anxiety from having to turn in the assignment before the deadline brings the best work out of me. One thing about me is that I hate noise. I can admit that I have the attention span of a squirrel. I get distracted from a mere fly buzzing past my ears more than once. So my intellectual home needs 100% silence. I then need to discipline myself, which is the most important part of my intellectual home, and think of the negative outcome of not completing my work, so my biggest distraction which is my phone needs to be put away. The place for my intellectual home is anywhere that has peace and quiet indoors (mainly a library or my room late at night).

The essay that I can relate to the most is Salvatore Scibona’s essay “Where I learned to read.” I intentionally flunked my second semester of college, spring semester of 2021, as my motivation for school slowly flushed down the drain. The very first sentence of the essay “ I did my best to flunk out of high school. I failed English literature, American literature, Spanish, precalculus, chemistry, physics”(Scibona, 1),  really hit home for me. I received a grade of WU for most of my classes and an enormous F for my marketing class. If that didn’t shock you I didn’t stop there, I did not go to school my 3rd semester either. I miraculously returned to school in the spring semester of 2022 and had a 3.4 term gpa. That wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t relate to the metaphor Scibona used “Even my body needed to read” (Scibona,1). The last semester was when I discovered my intellectual home as I was so invested in redeeming myself from my past college mistakes. I dedicated the majority of my time to school and felt off if I wasn’t doing something that was related to learning. My second choice is Bilal Rahmani’s essay “Chronicles of a Once Pessimistic College Freshman” simply because moving forward his adjustment to college is how I plan to prosper during my time here. I was precisely the student that Bilal described as “I didn’t join any clubs; I didn’t make any friends; I didn’t go to any rallies or shows or games. I didn’t care. . . You went to class, spoke to no one; you left class, spoke to no one; and you went home to do your homework, alone” (Rahmani,1). I was the useless antisocial type of student, which is very ironic because I am not an ounce of shy, and am actually a social person. My plan is to bring out the inner me for the rest of college and actually engage in college life. Opportunities that were never expected would show up with open arms if I welcome it with my involvement with college. 

My intellectual home would lead me to success. I would need to cut out the procrastination part but the disciplined part of my intellectual home would take me far in life. I have a step by step plan in life in which school plays a big part in so I cannot afford to fail.