Acrostics: I versus II

Hey, everyone!
     I hope everyone is doing well and has had a wonderful Christmas season. I’ve been mostly resting, catching up with friends, spending a ridiculous amount of money on textbooks, and waiting for the spring semester to begin. It promises to be a very long semester, what with my best friend (http://sparrowsmusings.wordpress.com/) gone to study abroad at Oxford. However, I am grateful beyond grateful for my education and the many wonderful friends I have, both within the English department and outside it! I digress.
     All that said, these next two poems require a bit of explanation. The concept is simple – use the first letters of your name to come up with words that describe you. The first acrostic I wrote at the beginning of my senior year of high school, August 2009, as a get-to-know-you assignment. The second I wrote today, the third of January 2012, just before my fourth semester of college.

(I – 2009)
Consistent and caring
Avid reader
Real and honest
Orchestral music lover and ballroom dancer
Loves making quality friendships
Is a perfectionist
Never wants to be a burden
Excellent hugger

(II – 2012)
Cynic
Afraid not to know
Results in chaos
Over-analyzer
Likes the American dream
Inconsistent
Notions insubstantial
Emotionally motivated

I wonder, even now, what happened between August 2009 and January 2012. For that there’s a one-word answer: college. At the university, new social, spiritual, and academic situations propelled me to a new self-awareness. Now I don’t mean “self-awareness” in a New Age sense; I just mean that normal process of getting to know oneself. Writing does this to a person. I look back on Acrostic I and realize how prideful I was then. Not to say that I’m not now (everyone has struggles, right?), but I have definitely journeyed far as a person since that high-school me. Professors pushed me to excel beyond anything I had hitherto accomplished. Knowing no one allowed me to make my own friends and a new reputation. New-found independence allowed me to explore spirituality authentically. I suppose I have become more aware of who I really am and what makes me tick.

Have you ever written an acrostic with your name? Have you ever re-read something you wrote and from it learned something about yourself? Post below!