From the day it came intothe house, it mesmerized me. Nothing could pull me away. It seemed to call me toit, sucking me in like a giant vacuum. It was a computer, and whether I played agame or did schoolwork, I loved sitting in front of it. I guess it could evenhave been considered an addiction. I was in ecstasy every time I sat down infront of the screen. Any free time I had I pumped into the computer. My momfinally limited me to an hour a day, unless I needed to do homework.

Overthe years I succeeded in limiting myself to one hour a day on the computer. I nolonger had the urge to be on it every time I walked by. Despite having onecomputer, however, I still wanted another for my room. My parents thought aboutit but decided it was too expensive and didn't think I really needed one. But,after four long years of begging and pleading, they finally gave in. It wasnowhere near the near top of the line, but I was extremely happy just thesame.

One day, as I sat down and turned it on, I heard a faint voice in myhead that changed my life: Become a computer programmer, it said over and over,louder and louder. I pondered this idea, then decided to try an experiment. I satdown with my calculator in one hand and my calculator manual in the other andattempted to write a simple program. I succeeded in creating a basic program thatfound the area of a circle if given the radius. After reading the calculatormanual a few more times and spending hours learning the programming code, I couldmake my calculator do almost anything I wanted. Then, I attempted to write aprogram using a powerful language called Visual Basic. I succeeded at this, too.At that point I realized I had the gift to program computers. I made my decision- I will become a computer programmer!