Undergraduate / "Soccer is my favorite sport" - Elaborate on your extracurricular activity. [4]

Please help me out on this small essay please.

Soccer is my favorite sport to play. I have been playing on a team for a year now. When I first started playing I didn't know much but now since I go to every practice and am fully dedicated I have improved greatly. Being in soccer makes me happy and keeps me active. Before every game I get nervous and very excited because I don't know what might happen. I have learned through soccer to never underestimate an opponent and to never give up. Even though the games are friendly and there is no award behind it, I give my all out on the field. This team has helped me improve in my leadership qualities. Since I now am the captain of the team, I have to take charge and make sure everyone is attending practice and doing their best performance. If it wasn't for soccer I think I would of never learned so much, not only abut soccer but about life itself.

Undergraduate / "higher education and my dad" - a person who has had a significant influence on you [4]

Can someone check this over please.=) so that i can submit it. thanks=)

As far as I can remember my dad has been working excessively, which either have been two jobs or overtime, so that we could have something to eat and somewhere to live. Before the recession, we used to go to the park every Friday, eat out every Sunday, and have a game and movie night every weekend. However, now as we don't have that much money, he works even more than he used to, which means less family activities and more tension, stress, and arguments in the family.

I remember that we used to go to the park and either play soccer, volleyball, tennis, or just chase each other around. When we would play, we would normally stop because we would fall over laughing of the funny moments we had. Most of the time, we would go out to eat after playing because we would be starving from all the running around. I would always look over at my dad and think, "how did he go to work every day and still have the energy to run around the park with us?" This has been something that I have always admired and that has left an influence on me. It has amazed me how he didn't just stay home and sleep, and would rather be with us. On the other hand, when we did stay home, he found an activity that could do together as a family. The family movie nights were the best because we would stay up very late into the night just watching movies together. On Sundays, we would wake up early and go to "Hometown Buffet" and have breakfast there, we would talk while we ate, bringing up memories from when my brother and I were younger. Everything was fine then, when the work was high, when the money my dad earned from his hard work covered our expenses.

Unfortunately, the work at his job went down and he earned less, which caused stress, tension, and arguments every day. Now instead of laughs and smiles, there is tension in the house and conflicts because of money. As of this day, my dad works two jobs, one at a corporation and another at a carpenter shop that he owns. The corporation is located in Irvine, which means he has to wake up around 4:30 a.m., and his shop is in Baldwin Park, which he leaves around 9:30 p.m. . His new hours means he is around us less, no more days at the park, no more eating out every weekend, and of course no more late movie nights. He, more than ever, is leaving an influence on me due to his hard work and diligence. I know that he gets exhausted from working so much and he keeps giving his all despite of everything. In addition to, he still tries to play with us and have a good time so we could ease up.

As a result to this, I learned that I have to get a higher education in order to prevent those types of problems to happen to me. To get there, I have learned from my dad that I need to be diligent and even though it seems that there is no way out, to never give up.