Undergraduate / Common App personal experience "Making the Jump" [2]

Hi I'm new here and pretty close to turning my applications in, but I just found this site and thought it would be a good idea to get some feedback on my essay. I'm a little worried that it doesn't say enough about me. Its really hard for me to write personal... so I would be really grateful if someone would read this over for me! Thanks!

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At six-thirty on a Saturday morning, I forced myself from between the still-warm sheets on my bed, into the coolness of morning. Though it was summer in Maryland, the heat rarely took hold until ten or eleven that morning and I still dreaded that initial rush or cool air against my bare skin.

Shedding my pajamas and discarding them in a haphazard pile on the floor, I pulled my one-piece Speedo bathing suit over my legs, stretching it up my torso like a second skin. As I adjusted the fabric over my shoulder, I studied myself in the mirror, noticing how the shiny green material expanded and contracted with each breath I took.

I was nine years old, but I had been swimming on the Olde Severna Park Severn River Swim team since I had been seven. My parents believed that it was very important for my sisters and me to know how to swim well, what with having a pool in the backyard and living so close to the river.

Every Saturday morning without fail, once our limbs had been lathered with sunscreen and our hair had been secured firmly with elastic, we would climb into our motor boat down at the beach, and splash across the Severn River to the dock where the swim meet was being held.

I both loved and hated swim team. It was absolutely nerve wracking once I was there, on the dock, being handed my heat and lane numbers for each race. When my number was called, I would break out into a sweat. Then, trembling, I'd be handed down into a little metal rowboat, with the other girls in my heat, to be taken to the other side of the dock, where the races would start. I was slimy all over from having been rubbed down with petroleum jelly, to prevent jellyfish stings, and I was often afraid of slipping, though I never did.

Swimming in the river is entirely different than swimming in a pool. The water is dark and murky, seemingly impenetrable. From time to time, and unexpected gust of wind would set the lane lines wriggling like snakes. As the waves slapped up against the sides of the dock, the spray was cold and salty on my face.

As I waited for the dreaded sound of the whistle, I curled my toes around the edge of the dock, trying to summon enough courage to do what was expected of me. The sharp tweet tore through the amiable babble of the spectators. Squeezing my eyes shut, and trying not to think about what I was doing, I threw myself off the dock and into the icy darkness beyond.

My streamline dive propelled my body easily into the opaque darkness. This was the point in the race that I loved about swimming, the reason I still came back every week. Below the water, a silence filled my ears like nothing on land. The cold brought newfound energy to my muscles, as I made a few powerful kicks to the surface.

Each stroke brought me closer and closer to the dock, until I was there, exhilarated, but shaking so hard I had to be lifted out of the water. As a towel was being wrapped around me, and I was being given pats on the back and a bottle of water, I was glad that I had made the jump.

If the patterns of daily life were to be plotted on a line graph, they would be a series of waves. Life is a never-ending sequence of anticipation, climax, and satisfaction, be it preparing for a math test, writing a college application, or swimming a race. I stopped doing swim team when I was in middle school, but I didn't forget about jumping off the dock. Though it may seem daunting to dive headfirst into unknown waters, one must take the jump to enjoy the swim.

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Thanks for reading!

Undergraduate / One of the first paintings I ever fell in love with was Van Gogh's Starry Night [3]

Please describe a work of art you have experienced that deeply impressed you. What features of this work of art (book, piece of music, film, painting, etc.) made it so powerful?

The dreaded question ^^ I still need about two hundred words added to make the required number. Any suggestions for additions? and with everything else of course. Thanks!

One of the first paintings I ever fell in love with was Van Gogh's Starry Night. Though I had little knowledge of great artists when I was in elementary school, a copy of Van Gogh's famous painting displayed on the art room wall was one of the first things I associated with great art.

It was the exposure to Starry Night that opened up my eyes to a world of artistic interpretation. A night sky was not simply a blue-black drape, pin-pricked with light. It was a myriad of colors and shapes, which in its own way, captured what was real.

Starry Night depicts the small village of Saint Remy under a swirling sky, with one of Van Gogh's characteristic cypress trees in the foreground. What particularly attracts me about this painting is the movement in the sky. One wouldn't typically think of a sky as having movement, yet Van Gogh makes it seem as though the light that radiated from stars causes the entire sky to dance. The paint is thickly layered on the canvas, every shad of blue imaginable fanned across the surface. The small, dashed strokes of his paintbrush, atypical to the usual smooth strokes often used by artists, leap across the surface in graceful arcs. Out of something entirely ordinary to our everyday lives, Van Gogh created something timelessly beautiful.

An artist's true power is his style; this is what sets him apart from others. There are many talented painters who could paint a perfect replication of a night sky over a little village in France. It is Van Gogh's unconventional interpretation, however, that advanced his painting to be hailed as a masterpiece.

Van Gogh's style has inspired me, as a painter, to develop my own artistic interpretation of the world. Unlike a photograph, which only captures a scene, a painting can immortalize passion. The goal of art is not to reproduce what lies before you, but to capture your own feeling towards the subject in your art. When I paint, if often takes me days to decide upon my subject, and the direction from which I will approach it. I have to think about the colors I want to bring out in my painting, and the emotions those colors will provoke. I had to think about the heaviness of my hand, the size of my brush, the detail I might include, the movement I may gesture. And all of this amounts to something that is distinctly me.

Starry Night made a distinct impression on me from the first time I laid eyes on it, and continues to serve as an artistic reference in the back of my mind today. Van Gogh's genius reminds me that I must find myself through my painting to be a true artist.

Undergraduate / Moral to the story? "Wheels and other round things" [3]

"Wheels and I don't mix," I haughtily announced to my dad after another frustrating summer afternoon of trying to learn to ride a bike. I was ten years old, and the only kid on the street who couldn't ride a two wheeler. Almost half of my life at this point had been plagued by fruitless attempts to abolish the rickety training wheels. Even my younger sister could ride circles around me. With a fresh wave of tears, I ditched my bike on the driveway, wheels spinning, and condemned myself to a life on foot.

I have always been the type of person to think things through before making a decision. At ten years old, unnecessary risks gave way to the "safe option." This was not to say I always took the path of least resistance. In fact, my stubborn refusals to ride a rollercoaster, climb a tree, and play lacrosse resulted in a perpetual struggle against my parents' implorations.

Some people prefer to take the easy way out, choosing the path of least resistance. Others plunge headlong into the most difficult option, without pausing to weigh the risks and benefits. I place myself somewhere in between; taking on challenges when appropriate, but knowing my own limitations.

As middle school and approached and passed by, I did finally learn how to ride a bike. The old hatred, however, stayed within me. I would only strap on a helmet and mount a bike when forced, and I was never sorry to get off. In the seven years that have passed, I think I may have ridden a bike only five or six times.

My sister recently attributed my hatred of bikes to a fear of "wheels and other round things." Pondering this thought as I tossed a whiffle ball for my dog, I was embarrassed to discover that this observation was true. It was around the same time I developed a dislike of bikes, perhaps a little earlier, that I eliminated most sports from my life. Soccer, basketball, lacrosse, anything involving the possibility of a ball coming in contact with my body. My parents implored me to try something new, but I stubbornly remained horrified at the thought of a basketball hitting me in the head.

There were other "round things" that I steered clear of in my childhood as well. Analog clocks, for example, evaded me for several years. I persisted on with my digital watch, snubbing the round circle whose hands and numbers eluded me. Hula hoops seemed to be magnetized to the ground when I stepped into them; I was always the first to loose a hula hooping contest. Pizza became the food which I detested most, along with all types of tomatoes.

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I wrote this a few months ago, but could not come up with a good ending, or thesis really. I feel as though this embodies a huge part of me, but I don't know what to say conclusively, how it has made me who I am today. Any suggestions? I need a "moral to the story"

Thanks!