Why Sam Changed?

Sam used to be a quiet student. He’d been so for a long time before he reached the age of 14, and everything changed. Before he was 14, he had been the top student at his school for 8 years in a row. He’d won several prizes in science competitions and was getting ready for the International Mathematics Olympiad.

But what happened to Sam? It all started when he began training for the Olympiad a year before. A girl called Rita moved from another school to Sam’s school to train there. Aside from being very smart, she was extremely beautiful and sociable. This made Sam very interested in her, but Sam wasn’t very attractive. He was also introverted; he wanted to spend time by himself and was usually afraid of meeting new people.

Sam respected Rita very much, but Rita’s personality had already changed Sam’s attitude towards himself. He didn’t like himself any more, and day by day he tried harder and harder to behave like Rita. He never used to go to his classmates’ birthday parties, and he didn’t even use to join them at the weekend when they went out. All of this caused Sam’s scores to go down because he didn’t spend much time studying. Now, he’s lost his chance to be in the Olympiad next year. Perhaps he’s wondering if his own real personality was the best thing he had.