Undergraduate / 'My hero is no James Bond.' PURA VIDA! Common app essay [8]

This is my common app essay. It is pretty long, 1004 words. I need help with condensing it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!!!

Prompt: Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

Pura Vida

My hero is no James Bond. He stands only 4 feet 7 inches tall, has a missing tooth, and a smile that extends far beyond the outer creases of his eyes. He likes to color pictures of dragons and brave knights instead of wrapping his head around algebra. I will probably never see my hero again, I don't even remember his name, but the impact he made on my life is indescribable. There was nothing special about him; he was a ten year old boy, attending school.

The school was Escuela El Dos in San Ramon, Costa Rica. I was in tenth grade biology, on a one-week trip, learning about biodiversity. There was a lot to learn about the environment of Costa Rica but to truly get a sense of the real Costa Rica, I needed to venture beyond the tourist attractions. San Ramon is an impoverished area, where most people work as farmers, and education is sparse. When I signed up for the trip, I was told to bring school supplies and children's shoes because we would be visiting a school that needed these items. At the time, I thought the shoes were a strange request from a school. Schools in Houston certainly do not list shoes on their supply lists.

We arrived at the school early in the morning; it was raining. I looked down; I saw my shoes being devoured by this murky brown substance. I was disgusted, I wanted to jump back on the bus and go back to the hotel instead of going inside this little shack. Then, I realized that the building in front of me with a red tin roof and bar covered windows, was a school. Twenty children jumped around and waving from the small covered porch. They ran towards us, a little boy grabbed my hand. He was smaller than most of the other boys. He said, "Hola!" I replied, "Buenos Dias!" I do not speak Spanish, but I tried to communicate with what minimal Spanish I had. All the children gathered around my class and music began to play from a small boom box, they started dancing. The little boy that grabbed my hand caught my attention; I noticed his shoes. They were bulky and too big for his tiny dancing feet. They were covered in layers of the same oozing mud that I was so disgusted by; his face showed no sign of repugnance. He seemed as happy as any child I ever knew.

I learned that most of these children lived in horrid conditions, owned a single pair of shoes, and possessed little means to entertain themselves besides attending school. "They have one pair of shoes?" I thought to myself. I have at least thirty pairs. I looked at this boy and wondered how many siblings he had, if he had enough food for his growing body. How could such a little thing faced with so many challenges be smiling like this? He showed me around the meager schoolhouse. He led me to the lunchroom, there was a fantastic array fruit out for us to eat, I muttered "Gracias!" He responded, "Pura Vida!" "Pura Vida" translates to "Pure Life". I noticed the pride in his voice when he spoke his country's motto. I understood what it meant. "Pura Vida" means that it doesn't matter how many shoes you have or if it's raining, life is for smiling, dancing, and happiness. The little boy's financial hardships don't stop him from living life to the fullest.

That vivacious little boy is the embodiment of "Pura Vida". The hardships of his life didn't matter, his eternal smile and overflowing heart shown true happiness. He was loved the life he was given. After the trip to Escuela El Dos, I realized that I should not let little things bring me down. Sophomore year, I received grades that didn't meet my standards because of the difficulty adjusting to the AP course load. I laid in my bed, remembering the beaming smile that lit up "Pura Vida's" face. It reminded me that there was nothing I could do to change the past year. I would work harder my junior and senior years and raise my grades; "Pura Vida" instilled his country's philosophy in me. I will overcome challenges with a smile that extends far beyond the outer creases of my eyes just as "Pura Vida" did.

Undergraduate / Phases - Bipolar essay-for UT. I need advice/ editing. [6]

This essay is extremely personal. I think I can cut my intro down. Any thoughts? How about the rest of it?? In my conclusion, I begin talking about volunteering. Should I take this out?? I dont want to start talking about it because I could go on for a page just talking about volunteering. Does it sound like Im just starting to talk about something totally different, or should I leave it in? ANY ADVICE WOULD BE HELPFUL!! THANKS SO MUCH!!

PROMPT: Choose an issue of importance to you-the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope-and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.

Phases

This might sound crazy. I often wonder what it would be like to taste the color blue or what color the car horn would produce. Imagine looking at the letters on this page of plain white paper and seeing a multitude of different colors creating a work of art right before your eyes. These are the ideas expressed in a book I read more than five years ago called A Mango-Shaped Space. It is a book about Mia, a girl who has a disorder (a gift in my eyes) called synesthesia, which allows her to view the world in colors unlike anyone else. Her senses intermingle to produce sounds that she interprets as being colorful geometric shapes and numbers and letters that glow every color on the visible light spectrum. While I know I will never get the opportunity to experience the fantastical world as Mia does, I can say that I always try my hardest to view the world through other people's perspectives and learn from their experiences. Maybe this is the reason I remember the scenes in the book like I read it yesterday. I learned a very important life lesson from a fiction book I bought from a middle school book fair.

My life is separated into two distinct phases. The first segment began when I was born and lasted until I was ten. My dad is bipolar, but he did not discover that he had this menacing disorder until I was ten. He was leading a lifestyle that was both unhealthy for himself and his family. I can remember spending days in my parents' California king bed staring at the swirls of light and dark brown wood on the headboard intertwining to create whimsical images. My parents were on the verge of divorce. My mind was screaming, "What is happening, why our family?" I know it is a cliché to ask "Why me?", but at this age, that is all I could think of. I felt like I was frozen. Everything around me was spinning 200 miles an hour, and I could not find the red "easy" button like on the Staples commercials to make it stop. He was in and out of hospitals. My mom was in and out of doctors' offices trying to describe his erratic behavior in hopes of finding that one doctor that could correctly diagnose him. I was in and out of therapy playing with toy horses in sand boxes with the therapist, activities which still make no sense in my mind. I felt helpless. Finally, my mom, being the great researcher that she is, came across an article on bipolar disorder.

From that point on, my life, slowly but surely, became normal. I was no longer staring at headboards or going to therapists. I began to laugh again. My parents did too. We began to pick up the pieces and start our lives fresh. The second phase of my life is still in progress, but I have done so much already. I have gotten lost in a London subway, made it to the top of the Eiffel Tower, sledded down a 14,000 foot mountain in Switzerland, cried at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, zip lined in Costa Rica, and learned, while visiting Pearl Harbor, of the harrowing stories of the men who lost their lives. All of this, and I am only 18. While everything was seemingly ideal, I never forgot my first phase. I still did not quite understand why my dad put us through the tornado of uncertainty. That insecurity lasted until I read A Mango Shaped Space and learned the gem of striving to value other people's outlooks through Mia's struggle to fit in among peers who were skeptical of her "disorder." I launched an exploration into my dad's battle with bipolar disorder in those anguishing years. He told me stories of longing to be home with his family but physically and psychologically unable to be so. I began to understand that he had no control over his behavior as a result of a chemical imbalance in his brain. The heartache he must have gone through astounds me to this day, as I see and hear the unconditional love he feels for me with every twinkle in his eye when he describes an idea for a new art project he is working on and every word he speaks with such exuberance.

People tend to want to stick to the "status quo", in which everyone lives his or her individual life apart from the rest of the world's influence. Through my whirlwind of a childhood culminating in the diagnosis of my father by my mother (of all people) and reading A Mango Shaped Space, I have come to value other people's life experiences and perspectives. When people ask me if I would want to change anything that has happened in my life, I reply, "Not at all." I would have a narrower outlook of our world if I had not been faced with such difficulties. Just as Mia's senses intermingle, my previously conceived views and those of others fuse to create a perspective that enables me to be more accepting of our world as it is.

Undergraduate / Beginning of my BU essay---I need to shorten it..A LOT! [2]

So I just started writing this essay for Boston University. It can be no more than 500 words. I am now at 344 words and I have only gotten to one adjective that i need(see prompt)...PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!! Any advice/tips/ways to shorten

PROMPT:In an essay of no more than 500 words, please select three words that describe you best and tell us how you will use these qualities/characteristics to contribute fully to the BU community.

If you help me, I'll be sure to take a look at yours. :)

Also take a look at my other essays!! They are due in a few days and I need help!!!!!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

Calmness flooded my senses as I scrolled down the supplement page of the Common Application. The prompt for this essay seemed to be easy enough. I just had to discuss three adjectives that describe me. Frustrated, tired, and longing (for the application process to be over). But these are only adjectives that describe me in the moment as I was sitting with my legs on the desk and eyes half shut. How am I supposed to choose three adjectives to describe myself when there are enough adjectives in the English language to fit in an entire Thesaurus? I decided to take a break. I closed Word, stared at the bright pink flower on my desktop for a few seconds and double clicked on the Windows Photo Gallery icon. I began to look at pictures in an album titled "Summer and Fall of Senior Year". Buried among pictures of me and my friends at the beach, having shopping cart races, and making unattractive faces at the camera for no apparent reason were three pictures that lead me to my first adjective.

Open-minded. We were at an Indian Restaurant called Shiva looking at a menu filled with words we were incapabe of pronouncing, words that looked nothing like how the waiter sounded them as he was telling us of the chef's specialties. Wiffs of cumin, coriander, and ginger would fill our nasal cavities as platters were being delivered to the surrounding tables. When our own food arrived, all we could do is stare. None of it looked even slightly familiar. Bowls of colorful goop (best word I can think of to describe it) surrounded a pile of rice and peas. My friends were skeptical. I dug in. Dipping my Naan in each of the bowls, I attempted to uncover the true identity of each "soup". The orange hid pieces of chicken. The green was a spinach concoction. The brown...I'm still not quite sure. All of these mysterious flavors are now in my brain's lengthy catalog of eclectic experiences that make me excited to try new things.