The professor droned away like a prerecorded message, not trying to cover up the fact that he had taught this same lesson every year since the beginning of time. It was the same thing he had said before, the same thing we’d just read in our copies of his book, and the same thing that I blatantly refused to believe every time I heard it.

“A person’s mind never changes.” He said, stating it like an obvious truth. “Our minds and bodies, while they blend in to fit the world around us, do not alter in beliefs or behavior. People are stagnant.”

I sighed and mumbled about the falsehood behind his words, unfortunately just loud enough for him to hear.

“What was that?” He turned and faced me.
“Nothing,” I said “I just disagree with you”

His air changed to one of disbelief. The man obviously wasn’t used to having his opinion questioned. I continued on, saying that despite his lesson, I knew that I myself had changed through my life. He repudiated, and told me that by his higher education, he knew that people’s behavior was not influenced, but inside them all along.

I disagreed.

He squinted threateningly in my direction
“Really now?” he added with a sneer, “Prove me wrong”


That’s exactly what I planned to do as I walked into my dorm a few blocks away. A good couple of years of psychology had cemented in me the belief that we as humans aren’t static beings, but ever changing canvases of new information and behavior, and hey, with so many lawyers in the family, I must have some of the I’ll-sure-as-heck-prove-you-wrong blood running through my veins.

I opened the door to my room with only one objective in mind: to find the box my mom had packed all my old journals and diaries in. I knew that if anything showed change within a person, it would be those. I put my mountain of textbooks on the desk and crawled to the one place where all useless junk eventually finds its way to: under the bed. I smiled as I found the carefully packaged box containing several years’ worth of brain dumps. Of course, my mom would be the only person on this earth who would think to send seemingly useless junk with me when I left home.

I tore open the lid and took out the journal on top; my first piece of evidence in the argument against fixed personalities. It was a one with flaming hot pink zebra stripes; one of the newer journals, though the cover was falling off and the edges of the pages were crumpled. Just at the sight of it, I remembered my sophomore year of high school. I could see the young girl that I was, trying to break out of my shell, but still hide it all behind the happy looking pattern of bright colours. It seemed so long ago, but the last time I had seen the journal couldn’t have been more than a couple of years. Once I cracked open the cover, my mind was thrust into an earlier time, thrown deep inside the mind of a fifteen year old trying so desperately to know her world. I began to read.

The entire first entry, one whole page of text, was devoted to a dingle definition, phrased in a page worth’s of different ways. I smiled slightly as I read, seeing how I had hid behind a wall of elaborate sentences that in no way related to myself. As I turned the first pages, I saw the same words jump out every few lines; “I”, “everyone”, “Lord of the Flies”. Faces that had lost their names presented themselves once again to my mind. There was that one tall guy, the one with an accent who spelt my name right on the team note sheet. I remembered telling him he got it right too, that was a feat in itself for me back then, talking to someone who I’d never met before.

I drew myself out of the journal for a minute to laugh at how shy I had been. I remember not even talking in our first class discussion. Giving presentations in front of the class had been horrible as well. I flipped a few pages ahead to my entry where I talked about my “boast”. I was surprised to find first that my writing style had already changed only ten pages into the journal. It was more open already, more aware. I didn’t have the repetitive dictionary-like repetition of the same phrase.

The next entry was one of sheer terror that sent me into a fit of shameful giggles at my attitude. Reading my boast in front of the class was traumatizing, but now reading the reflection of that experience was only entertaining. I eagerly flipped the next pages, each consecutive entry probing deeper into my own thoughts and extracting truths from the world around me. I skimmed through pages of growing opinions, probing questions and explanations of enjoyment. I could see my confidence rising, ever so slightly, page by page as the journal continued. Reflections of horror turned to ones of mild discomfort, and gradually to nonchalant commentary. Even though I couldn’t remember exactly what I had written during many of the in class essays I had written about in my journal, I could tell that those too had improved throughout the year.

I stopped reading and let the final few pages fall through my fingers. Every so often, certain phrases jumped out and swam in my conscious mind; phrases about little truths of life obtained from the frayed pages of books studies years ago. I paused on the last page, an entry dated from the last day of that class. It too was a reflection. Shifting the journal position, I read every line, and between every line of that last entry. I remembered having thought that it was my most insightful and pleasing entry after I wrote it. At that moment I came across a line mentioning my final presentation in that class; a reflective narrative of that past year in class. I wondered if my mom had kept that as well. Having been pleased with the results of my introspective self journey, I once again lowered myself under my bed to look for that essay in which I had summed up my life for the past school year in only a few short words.