Undergraduate / Dolly Parton - some of your favorie books,songs etc (CHICAGO SUPPLEMENT) [5]

Hie guys!please critique this supplemental essay,the deadline is fast approaching!

Here is the prompt:

Question 2. Share with us a few of your favorite books, poems, authors, films, plays, pieces of music, musicians, performers, paintings, artists, blogs, magazines, or newspapers? Feel free to touch on one, some, or all of the categories listed, or add a category of your own.

One of my favorite musicians of all time is Dolly Parton, because her music has had an unforgettable impact on my life.

Growing up, Dolly Parton's album Revival could easily have been the soundtrack to my life. Each Saturday, my mother or one of her friends hosted what were called" kitchen tea parties". It is at these parties that I grew to love the music of Dolly Parton.

We had an old radio that played both vinyl discs and audio tapes. It was a grand machine with buttons and levers and even many more missing. It took pride of place in our small home, and stood helmeted in a mahogany chest balanced dangerously on two legs and a brick. It is into its insides that we placed beloved "Dolly" tapes, which were often chewed up by the aging radio. At that point, the well loved glorious country voices would morph into indecipherable squeaks. It would then be left to the children to unravel the entangled contents of the tape, to make sure that once again, the tides of songs such as "Yesterday" and "I will always love you" would rise and rise within the cracked walls of our small home.

These small house parties were as much about listening to the music as they were about dancing to it. We, the children, were often too shy to dance in front of the elders, so we would show off our moves in the backyard. As the contrapuntal country rhythms blared in the house, we would be hard at work perfecting our own routines outside. Our little, bare and calloused brown feet would pound the earth whilst our ultra thin waists trembled uncontrollably from the fevers of music and dance. We sang along in broken English with our clenched fists making for some pretty good imaginary microphones. And our clothes, being the rags they were, had developed tentacles that floated in the air as we danced. That is how we enjoyed the music of Dolly Parton.

At the end of the day, we would enjoy coca cola (a real treat) and watch the dust raised by our dancing settle against the backdrop of the African sun melting into the orange tingled horizon.Soon, each mother would gather up brood and head home, always whistling the refrain of her favorite tune from the album Revival by Dolly Parton. It was music that stirred the soul, and they were lyrics that you could store in your heart forever.

Undergraduate / "Taylor, my American brother!" - Stanford "Letter to a roommate..." [5]

Hie people!please critique my Stanford"Letter to a roomamte" .I look forward to your comments!

Stanford University supplement.

Letter to a roommate.

Dear Taylor from Colorado,

It is such an honor to have you as a roommate. It will be such fun my American brother!

Taylor, as you know the month we enroll coincides with the harvest. The rains have been so heavy this year and we are expecting a bumper crop indeed! I have built you a hut to store your corn and wheat crop which I will garnish from my own quota of our family's harvest. I thatched the hut myself and was sure to smear every inch with cow dung and earth to make it stand out. You will love it my brother!

Meanwhile, I have been working tirelessly courting several girls from the village for your marriage ceremony. I tell you when I showed them that picture of you; they could not believe that an American wanted to marry them! One of the most beautiful girls in the village, Tendai, has been sleeping at the river all year. I told her that America is to the west of Africa, so she is sleeping at the riverbank beautifying herself in a mud bath all year, just for you. So you should hurry and ask her father's hand in marriage before the new moon, before the crocodiles eat her or the village boys take her!

As for your other two wives, well they are not as beautiful but they can cook very well! They have started a banana plantation and cattle kraal to help feed the children you will soon have. Please check the parcel I sent you for a small clay pot of beeswax. You must start twisting your hair into dreadlocks in preparation for the marriage rituals. I also sent you a ream of bright cloth. You must print the tie and dye pattern on the back of this letter onto the cloth as this will make you be accepted more easily by the ancestors.

Taylor, I cannot wait to meet you! I am bringing all three of your wives along, so be sure to prepare our room accordingly. But you must hurry and slaughter a goat before the fall so that the ancestors will allow me to bring your wives to Stanford!

Best wishes my brother!
Simba.

(P, S. Taylor, none of the above is true! I just wanted to give you a glimpse of my culture and traditions which, although I respect, clearly do not always uphold. Because you are from a very different culture to mine, I hope that we will be able to merge the divide and have exciting experience learning about each other's cultures! I look forward to meeting you (no wives attached!).

Simba.