By Cheng Chen | ACE | Class of 2023
Academic Term of Essay Subject: Fall 2019

Prize Winner

When first I came to Miami, I didn’t realize the importance of mailbox in the dorm. They looked like pigeonholes, not the mailboxes I’d imagined standing by the side of the road. Nearly two weeks later, I heard there was a lot of letters in those pigeonholes. So I went downstairs to the mailbox immediately.

When I was standing in front of the mailbox, I did not know what to do because I found they were opened by a rotating password lock, and I knew nothing about it. So I asked the guy who was next to me for help, and he told me that the password had been sent in the email before. So I started to look for my three number password in the emails sea and I soon found it. I’m a little excited, because it’s exciting for me to try something I have never done before. I rotated the code lock to the right to those three digits, but I couldn’t open it. I tried four more times and still couldn’t open it. So I had to ask that kind person for help again. He said that it was very easy; I should turn left first to clean up, and then turn right to the passwords. While he was talking to me, he opened my mailbox. I am very grateful to him, not only because he helped me get the newest mail, but also because he taught me how to open the mailbox. About a week later, one time when I went downstairs, I saw a girl who was worrying about how to open her mailbox. I was very confident to walk over. She asked me if I can open the mailbox, and I said definitely and started to show her what I had learned last time confidently in front of her. But when I found that I still could not open it, I was very surprised. My first thought was that the lock must be broken. I tried three more times, but I still couldn’t open it. When we were very upset, an old lady who was sweeping the floor came to us. She asked if we needed help, and I reluctantly said yes. So she opened the mailbox easily in few seconds. But what was different from last time, she told me after turning left to clean up, I need to turn right, then turn left and finally turn right. Although I was a little embarrassed that I didn’t help the girl open her mailbox, I finally learned the right thing this time.

A few days later, when I was hanging in the dormitory building, I saw the mailbox, and I decided to try it again because I didn’t believe these small mailboxes could not be opened by me. So I followed the way that old lady taught me, but I still could not open it. I tried at least seven more times, but it was still locked. At this time the old lady appeared again, I immediately asked her why I still can’t open. I saw she pulled the mailbox’s door gently and it opened. She told me that after I had rotated to the correct password, I needed to pull the door to open it. So when I rotated to the correct password again, I tried to pull the mailbox’s door. But I found that no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t open the door. The old lady smiled and gently pulled the mailbox door open again by shaking her hands. She said that the password may not be stuck to the right card slot sometimes, so I need to shake my hands when I was pulling the door. I was shocked. At that time I believed the old lady standing in front of me must master the mysterious magic; and I just like those who can’t do any magic in Harry Potter called Muggles, was trying to humiliate myself by trying to do something I couldn’t do at all.

So after that, I always asked my roommate to help my pick up my mails. Compared to try to open those terrible designed mailboxes, I was more likely to say thank you to my kind roommate. Something even if you think you have the capacity to do it, but you really can’t do it. Everyone is good at something, but it never means that everyone can do everything well. This is the lesson I learned from the mailbox.