Undergraduate / NYU Tisch Dramatic Essay - "Hear My Notes" [6]

This is my dramatic essay for my NYU Tisch Film and Television application! I literally just finished it and would love some advice. I know it's pretty rough right now which is why I wanted to start early on my essays. Any advice to improve would be great!

Prompt: Dramatic Story - Introduce yourself. Describe an unforgettable event in your life and how it changed your perception of yourself or the view of someone close to you. This event can be dramatic and/or comedic. The assignment should be written as a short story. Please do not write about why or what lead you to pursue a degree in film and television production. Ultimately we are looking for evidence of your potential as a visual storyteller.

Hear My Notes

I almost got this. And no mom, I won't go to sleep until I get this.

Easter bunny goes dancing at Easter. EBGDAE. It's as easy as that. If only my fingers can pluck each string in order while saying the string names in my head. Some may hear a broken note played as my dedicated fingers tried to pluck one string while my pinky accidently hit another. As for me, I hear a voice. A humble voice speaking more than just the "Easter bunny goes dancing at Easter". A humble voice loud enough to push my fingers across the aluminum strings covered in dust from an old lamp hanging above. The voice was the only tune I needed to hear. This voice was the chorus to my unfinished song. This voice was my grandmother's. This voice stops time.

Time. My mind travels back to a time when my song first began. My hesitant eyes daze upon a clock as the tip of my pencil taps my blank homework sheet. 7:00...That's all I wanted to read. Brriiinnngg!!! The vibrato of the phone. Run. Pick up the phone before anyone else can. I know who it is because they always call right between homework time and dinner time. The perfect time. The vibrant voice of my grandmother says hello and asks how my day was. My answer is always the same, yet she is still enthusiastic every time I answer. However, my days aren't always as fine as I say they are. They aren't "fine" at all. I could make them if I tried to but the tunes won't flow out when I need them. I can't talk to anybody, as my social anxiety always gets the upper hand. This hand covers my mouth to which the notes are trapped and never see a time of freedom.

Freedom. That's what she gave me. As I pick up the phone, the voice forces the hand off and the notes flow out to whichever tune it chooses. As for today, this tune will be about my wildest dreams. I tell her I want to become a rock star. It's ironic, I know. How can I not be able to speak a single word in social situations yet want to scream a song at the top of my lungs? It doesn't matter to my grandmother. It's the best dream she has ever heard.

She says, "Work hard in silence. Let your success be your noise."

I told her I wanted to get a guitar to play like the legends, Slash and Ozzy Osbourne. She tells me she also wants to get a guitar so we can learn together and become rock stars. I mean how awesome would it be to have a rock star grandma? That's how cool she was. She would learn just for me. She wanted me to be myself, to stop worrying, and to just enjoy the moment.

A few weeks afterwards my grandmother bought a guitar. A "First Act: Adam Levine" guitar. It's not a Fender but it does the job for now. She says she will wait until I get mine so we can practice together. Who knew it would take days...months...even years for me to get my own. Who knew it would be too late.

Its August 3, 2010. We just came back from Dallas, TX from visiting my grandmother in the hospital. I have never felt so much regret or emptiness in my life. While visiting her, I felt as if all my songs have stopped, the singer has walked off stage and the curtains are closing. I don't know how, but I knew this would be the end of my duet. I knew she was sick, and it hurt so much that I couldn't feel my body and my mind was hallow. All the words I ever wanted to say to her, the thank you's and the good bye's were all gone....stopped by the hand that has been muting my notes my entire life. I couldn't say anything. There was no completion to this song. My 10 year old voice went back to being barely a month old, not being able to speak a word.

But I wanted to speak. I wanted to make noise. Sadly, it took till after her death for me to actually do something about it. Nothing was gonna stop me. I picked up her First Act guitar from the boxes in her home and struck a note. Any note. Turns out my song wasn't over, it was never over. I can and will finish this song until my fingers can play these strings anymore.

So no mom, I can't go to sleep. Not yet. I don't watch the clock anymore. I do what it does. Keep going. I am going to teach myself all that I can about this guitar whether it takes me hours, days or years. Nothing is going to stop my song from ringing through every ear in this world. The hand has been defeated by the music in my soul and plays every word I ever meant to say but I never have the notes to do so. I went from playing "Easter bunny goes dancing at easter" string by string to playing Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train in no time. I play over and over again until it becomes who I am. Her voice is the power chord in my soul that keeps mind at ease and allows my song to continue with every note being louder than the last.

Undergraduate / Kiwis Cant Fly. I read that in a bird book once. Common App Essay [4]

This is my essay for the common app. My mind is completely blank trying to make this better so any help counts. I really wanted it to be creative and really captivate the reader. I just wrote this so it isn't a final draft. Im applying early decision so I really need to get this completed soon! Please help!

Prompt:
Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Kiwi's can't fly.

I read that in a bird book once.

The flightless ratite roams with useless wings. A bird that can't even fly. That's like a fish who can't breathe with gills. The thought that all your life, you have been just trying to find a use for the things on the side of your body that are defined as "wings"- although they aren't wings, to you their just a waste. They call these things a gift..although, whose gift was it given? Certainly not yours. What are you gonna do with them? Flap them to only never move, to never start? My whole life I believed I resembled a kiwi.

I remember my 5th-grade graduation like it was yesterday. I'm sitting in the front row, waiting for my cue to give our graduation speech in front of everyone. I go up, read whatever my teacher wanted me to read, and give the best of luck to each of the student's future. My teacher looks at me and says "Kiera, what are you gonna do when you grow up?" I couldn't find the answer. One boy believed it was his destiny to find the first aliens on Mars. One girl believed she was meant to cure cancer.

I don't know what I was meant to do. I had no clue what my purpose was in this world.

I hated this answer and I swore to myself I would find one for this question. So, I tried to learn anything-anything at all. I looked deep into myself and the world to find something I wanted to look forward to for the rest of my life. I once taught myself Japanese thinking I was meant to be a translator. I taught myself archeology and the creatures going extinct, the kiwi for example. I learned how to cook and write a cookbook. I learned how to draw, to write, to juggle...

And I loved them all. But I needed one thing to be considered a "purpose".

What even was I looking for? An excuse? Why did I even need a purpose, a reason to say this is exactly why I'm on this Earth? In church, I learned that we have already been given our future. It's like little kiwi wings that are stuck to our body. But, what good is this if we don't know how to fly? What good is it if we don't even know what these things are, we are brought into this world searching for the answer? What good is it to trouble ourselves to find what exactly we need to use these wings for? Maybe we don't need a purpose at all. Maybe the kiwi's wings are just there to force them to question their existence. Maybe it's just an excuse to confine ourselves to only one way of life, a mindset that if we don't find an exact purpose in this world, then you're nothing but useless.

What does a kiwi do anyway? It doesn't fly, so what is its purpose? I learned a lot about myself searching for my own. I learned that I let standards get to my head, to make me go crazy and question my existence. But more importantly, I learned that I was determined, open-minded and had more than just one "purpose" to offer the world. While also searching for the answer, kiwis learn that they're nocturnal, and can sing majestic calls that pierce the New Zealand air. Although they can't fly, they are known as the most "honorary bird".

I eventually found what I wanted to pursue in my life. Art was exactly what I was looking for. But I don't want to limit myself to just that. That doesn't have to be my sole purpose. I want to conquer the world with my little kiwi wings in the process.