Undergraduate / "rock balance"-my common app main essay [4]

Please give me some feedback and I'm really grateful to hear your advice~ : )

My childhood ended when I got my piano the year I was four. My mother seduced me in this with a splendid, shining dark wooden piano. A four-year old was not expected to know all the things she was going to give up in the following 10 years. The biggest reward from that year on was a day without piano. A loving mother with extreme patience otherwise managed to act like a cruel dictator whenever it's time for me to sit before the piano. The year I past the highest level test of professional piano proficiency was also the year I went to boarding school. I was finally free as a bird. For three years, I didn't even stir the air around that piano. I didn't know at that time that it would come back in my life as such a different character during my freshman year.

My familiarity with so many pieces of classic music showed in our music classroom, my stable performance in our school choir as baseline pitch to others, and my effortlessly won first place medals in three school singing contests revealed the secret that I know piano. A best friend dragged me into a rock club. I was transfixed the moment she led me into the underground rehearsal room.

Deafening mixture of drum, bass guitar, and accordion, dynamically positioned performers, and the thick dust in the unclaimed corners created a surreal world that resonated with my heart beat in a way I never felt before.

The setting was totally different from solo piano. It was hard for me at the beginning, not because I had to pick up what I had left three years ago, but because I had to rock the art of balance: the balance between my piano and all other instruments and the singer. I've played piano over ten years, it was first time I got blister on my fingers for trying to hit the perfect chord. The biggest challenge was to lead the beat but stay as background note. But it was all rewarded when I finally got there: the perfect coordination with other players and the powerful sum of emotions gave me goose bumps. I fell in love with piano again.

Comparing with the journey of searching for the balance with other instruments, I felt the balance of performing for myself and the audience came natural. On our concert, not all the songs on our play list were performed perfectly. Guitar cord was dropped once; the singer forgot his words; and the lighting had a litter malfunction. All these incidents would mean serious trouble on a classical concert, but it actually added some twist on our stage. Every one walked to the front row and sang along. That was the most fulfilling moment in my piano life.

I finally found the meaning of playing piano. It is not a requirement to label myself as an elegant woman. It is not a dazzling skill to impress others. It is not even a media to express myself. For me, it is something to share. Piano came back alive because I shared it with other players in my rock club and the engaging audience. I think I just unlocked my potential of being happy and meaningful.

Undergraduate / "doll making"-my common app short answer(extracurriculum activity) [4]

Please give me some feed back and i'm glad to hear your advice. thx~ : )

Doll making is like a miniature life of my own. Having a big picture in mind and not losing patience in every stitching work both are critical for creating the perfect doll. You can't judge a stitch of its position, direction or color if it's not designed to form a feature. The finished doll won't look adorable as you imagined if every tiny configuration is not treated with extreme care. It is not easy always. Just like real life, everyday seems like an exact and boring repeat of the previous day. Hold there, don't lose faith and all those plain vanilla days will produce a magnificent future.

All my dolls are made of household craps. The Ordinary generate the extraordinary through my imagination and bare hands. My days may look mundane to you, but I love each one of them because collectively they create magic.

Undergraduate / "embroidery, the Chinese Cultural Experence Campus"- my common app [6]

Please give me some feedback. Thank you! : )

At the age of three, I always sat on my grandma's knee, watching her embroiding on a fabric. At that time, I thought my grandma's hands had magic because after a couple of days, the fabric turned out to be my new year's gift - a new stuffed pillow with sophiscated decoration, sometimes a red peony, sometimes a white camellia. .

When I was six, I started my first needlework. I asked my mom to teach me knit. It wasn't easy for me at first. The wool always entangled and it confused me a lot. I knit all day, effortlessly trying to conquer the two scaffling darning needles. After a couple of months, I finished my first masterpiece: a striped scarf which can hardly tied around my neck.

The year I turned nine, I decided to stitch a trinket of a key chain for my mom's birthday. Every evening when the whole family sat around the table, watching the latest television series, I would sit on a corner of the sofa, embroidering the design on the java canvas. Once I proceeded a stitch wrong and it took me more than two hours to do over the stitching. Finally I successfully completed the pendent with a bee patern on it before my mom's birthday. Mom still dangles all her keys on it today.

When I was thirteen, my elder brother had a crash on a beautiful girl. He took physical training, learned to write love letter and went on a date every day regardless that it was a time when China was in threat of an epidemic(Crazy, huh? Guess what? I would have done the same thing if I had been him.) Finally, as a generous younger sister, I spent a week and a half embroidering a scarve with a image of love story. He sent it to her that winter and that girl is now my sister-in-law.

Last summer, as a volunteer of the Chinese Cultural Experence Camp, I spent eleven days with my buddy - a ethnically Chinese girl from Singapore. I intended to bestow her a embroidered purse as a surprise. During the daytime, I took her to travel around Chinese ancient palaces and try Beijing snacks; at night, I locked myself in the bedroom, kniting one, purling one. It was in a evening of homestay that my mission was unfortunately exposed. She was amazed when she saw the half-finished purse with the Chinese traditional blue-flowered ceramic pattern and asked me to teach her to embroider. We joined efforts to finish the purse in the rest days of the camp and she took the purse with her back to Singapore after the camp ended. At that weekend, I was surprised to receive an email from her stating that she had also fallen in love with the art of embroidering.

I finally find the meaning of embroidery. It is not a requirement to label myself as an elegant woman. It is not a dazzling skill to impress others. It is not even a media to express myself. For me, it is something to share. Embroidery came alive because I shared it with people around me - not only share the Chinese traditional technique which has been forgotten by most modern people, but also share my emotions of love and the tranquility of the soul in this much more impaintient world. When I was doing a stitch of work - it felt right.