Undergraduate / Corruption, chaos, hostility! (Experience, risk Personal Essay Evaluation) [4]

Prompt: Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

In winter 2009, at the tender age of fourteen, I was exiled to a far, barbaric land. A land of corruption, chaos, and hostility: a land where starvation was commonplace, and the notion of civility was entirely foreign. At least, that's how being forced to attend a youth mission trip in the remote village of Ifewara, Nigeria seemed to me. The more my parents tried to convince me otherwise, the further my heart sank into the dark depths of my stomach; there was no way I, a girl accustomed to fast food and faster text messaging, could live in the poster city for destitution.

Throughout the ever-enduring journey to the village, I made no attempt to subdue my discontent. The group leader grinned, I scoffed. My peers conversed, I remained lethargic and disconnected. However, the very moment our van descended onto the umber ground, my naïve conceptions dissolved into the reality that appeared through the broken, begrimed windshield. Through that windshield, I saw the foreign soil that threatened life as I knew it, the mud houses lined with straw mats and despondence, the ravenous dog foraging for its only meal of the day. I saw the gaunt faces of two young boys scurrying about barefoot. I saw the naked sleeping baby attached to its mothers back with nothing more than an antiquated piece of cloth. I saw my fate for the next week.

My bewilderment peaked when the mission team and I arrived at the schoolhouse where we would be dispensing "aid and affection," in the words of our group leader, all week. As my eyes wandered and my heart rate accelerated beyond the speed of the flies buzzing around my perspiring head, a man standing before an overcrowded classroom caught my attention; he presumably asked a question. Not a split second later, a sea of frail yet eager hands shot into the air, each one trying to out reach the others in hopes of winning the man's recognition. The man- whom I distinguished as the teacher- let out a slight chuckle, caught a glimpse of my intrigued stare, and continued attending to the class. The longer I stayed in the schoolhouse, the more I wanted to connect with each of the eager hands I observed. Although the schoolhouse was originally a place I was hesitant to see, I ended up going during my spare time everyday that week even if it was just to sing 'Igwe' with Dami, the smallest girl who seemed to be in a constantly jubilant state. It was because of this school, because of this girl, that I finally realized what I had truly seen through that windshield, heritage- in the hand crafted mud house, in the young boys playing an age-old Nigerian game, in the baby swaddled between a nurturing mother and carefully tailored ankara.

The Nigerian's strong sense of culture had filtered into my subconscious. I was no longer Justine the egocentric aesthetician, but Justine the proud Nigerian, versed in the appreciation of foreign cultures, and hoping to continue her education of such cultures through travels to ever further, wilder lands. I was finally proud of my heritage, and thankful that my parents forced me into a situation that shaped who I am today.

This is what I have so far. I know the concluding paragraph needs a lot of help. Constructive criticism as well as revisions are definitely appreciated, and I don't know if this information is necessary, but I'm probably using this essay for Dartmouth!

Undergraduate / Daria Morgendorffer, a smart, snarky, sensitive teenage girl - Person of Influence [4]

Prompt basically asks for a person on influence and how they impacted you. Any criticism/comments are appreciated!

A person who has made an impact on my life isn't a real person at all, nor do I know her in real life. The fact that someone who inspires me is fictional stems from the fact that while I was growing up, there wasn't any one tangible person who impacted me greatly. My life was cathartic and transient in that there was no sense of social stability - I moved constantly and it was difficult to get to know people fully enough to consider them influential. At the same time, my parents were seldom home; though they loved me to the best of their ability, they had little influence on who I am as a person and what my values are, aside from a few that they instilled in me at a young age. 



I discovered Daria Morgendorffer, a smart, snarky, sensitive teenage girl at a young age, a time when I didn't really have anyone; I had no friends, my parents were never home, and the only constants in my life became the things I chose to immerse myself in: art, literature, music, schoolwork. The reason why Daria impacted me so much was because, from a social standpoint, I didn't feel so alone when I watched her. I had someone to relate to. An exemplification of myself in animated form, Daria was a bespectacled, plain, unfashionably dressed, but highly intellectual and seemingly cynical teenage girl, portrayed as an icon of sanity in insane surroundings. She was not afraid to take risky, manipulative actions to call attention to her principal's unethical behavior. She preferred reading to playing with other kids as a child, and was perfectly content with the few, true friends she had in school. I could relate greatly to the views she had towards high school, to the fact that she encompassed a generation of adolescents who had that same mindset in that they questioned why we did things like seek popularity, and what use they would have after high school.

With Daria, there was a sense of acknowledgement in regards to school as a whole, that what you did in it, wouldn't necessarily define who you were when you left, something that most parents, including mine, didn't agree with. I grew up with a warning in my head which repeatedly reaffirmed that school was a life and death situation, that academic intelligence was the most valuable thing in the world and that if I got a B or anything short of an A*, I was a failure. If you look at Daria, even though she didn't fit in with her high school class or social, workaholic family, she still enjoyed life because she wasn't concerned about projecting a certain image of herself or a model student - she didn't care; she would rather be an individual, an intelligent loner, than yet another popularity obsessed teenager.

For the longest time, in middle school at least, I wanted to fit in. I wanted the boat shoes everyone was wearing, the cell phone constantly being taken up in class, the ideal relationship with every member of the student body. Now however, I have no sense of wanting that, to blend in consciously, as opposed to honoring my idiosyncrasies and the few strong relationships that have resulted from them. Daria had a sense of honesty and truthfulness in the face of judgment from a harsh demographic of unfair teachers and self-obsessed students; that in itself made Daria an inspiration. Daria is the reason why I didn't tear myself down after a bad grade and the paternal criticisms that accompanied it, she taught me that my mental capabilities were not determined by a quiz or standardized test, but by the way I used my knowledge to better both my own situation and others'. Daria is the reason why I shrugged off the over-apparent social hierarchy of my school with dry humor, wit, and sarcasm, rather than letting it affect me psychologically. Daria Morgendorffer, the 5'2" brown haired, brown-eyed, animated, fictional MTV character, saved me from giving into the constant pressure I felt from the media, my school, and family; she shaped me into the calm, confident, strong-willed person I am today.