Journal 31: Presence of Mind

     According to Henry James’s statement, I believe that “perfect presence of mind” means differently to everyone. It is the ability to think and act calmly and efficiently, especially in an emergency. To me, writing college application essays is how I experienced “perfect presence of mind.” There were some rules that I had to follow when I wrote essays, such as words limit, direction, and idea. This type of essay was totally different from those I did for homework. First, I needed to brainstorm. It was a very hard process because there were only few things could really fit your topic. It is possible for me to brainstorm a topic for almost one month. I must on the right track before I started to write my essay. During the college application, I was suffered by those essays. I had to hind in a silent place and concentrated on writing my essay. Achieving this presence of mind might be particularly important for writing a compare and contrast essay because you need to think about the subjects which you want to compare deeply. Moreover, when you think in this way also avoid showing a bias when comparing and contrasting. To a writer, it is better not to stand on any side of the subjects.