spinningjenny
Oct 30, 2008
Undergraduate / to spend summer in New Zealand - Common App essay [2]
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
My parents told me we were going to spend last summer in New Zealand almost a year in advance, but I came to my conclusion immediately. It'd be awful. There seemed to be some magic that happened when everyone else traveled that just didn't happen to me. That bothered me like something stuck in between my teeth. I pestered my friends. Eventually they stopped protesting and just let me complain, but they never told me their secret. After maybe the fifth time of hearing me describe the miseries I'd surely go through, my friend told me "Well, of course you'll have a bad time if you expect to."
It wasn't at all a tricky or a new idea. Still, it weighed heavily on my mind. It weighed on my mind as I packed, it weighed on my mind throughout the numerous disorienting flights, and it weighed on my mind as I stepped into the blustery winter air. As we drove down the wrong side of the road, I decided that my friend was right, but I was right, too. I had to try very hard not to be unhappy so that I could prove to her that I was going to end up unhappy anyway. I needed to show the world how inevitable my lack of magic was.
It turned out that when I'm not letting myself think about all the things I could be doing at home, there are nice things to do other places. I took a live-drawing class and created some of my favorite pieces of artwork. I spent days in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa, which is Maori for 'Our Land,' and saw the finest relics of a culture I'd never even heard of in global history class. It turned out that when I'm not letting myself focus on how different my parents are from my friends, they're actually kind of funny. And it turned out that when I'm not letting myself feel decidedly blase, sights are even kind of exciting. I pet a giraffe, I was in the tallest building in the entire southern hemisphere, and I stomped through the woods looking for Lord of the Rings filming locations. I had more than a good time. My winter in July was even... magical. It sparked some smugness in my patient friends when I got home, but I was the real winner.
It wasn't until I started the school year that I realized the importance of what I'd learned. I was trudging through some homework that I'd been avoiding all day when I realized it was just another New Zealand. I didn't have to hate it. I'd been spending my entire life deciding whether or not something was going to be wonderful or miserable before hand and reacting accordingly. But now that I've started paying attention to how things really are, I haven't come by a single second that didn't have something to appreciate.
I always knew the idea that 'life is what you make it' meant that how much effort I put in is how much effort I get out, but I always thought there was some external receiver who had to make the transaction. If I put work into the world, by doing my homework or helping out a friend, the world would reward me when the teacher gave me an A and the friend gave me thanks. The effort I put in to being happy comes back right away and never passes through moody fate's hands. I can't say how comforting that idea is.
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
My parents told me we were going to spend last summer in New Zealand almost a year in advance, but I came to my conclusion immediately. It'd be awful. There seemed to be some magic that happened when everyone else traveled that just didn't happen to me. That bothered me like something stuck in between my teeth. I pestered my friends. Eventually they stopped protesting and just let me complain, but they never told me their secret. After maybe the fifth time of hearing me describe the miseries I'd surely go through, my friend told me "Well, of course you'll have a bad time if you expect to."
It wasn't at all a tricky or a new idea. Still, it weighed heavily on my mind. It weighed on my mind as I packed, it weighed on my mind throughout the numerous disorienting flights, and it weighed on my mind as I stepped into the blustery winter air. As we drove down the wrong side of the road, I decided that my friend was right, but I was right, too. I had to try very hard not to be unhappy so that I could prove to her that I was going to end up unhappy anyway. I needed to show the world how inevitable my lack of magic was.
It turned out that when I'm not letting myself think about all the things I could be doing at home, there are nice things to do other places. I took a live-drawing class and created some of my favorite pieces of artwork. I spent days in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa, which is Maori for 'Our Land,' and saw the finest relics of a culture I'd never even heard of in global history class. It turned out that when I'm not letting myself focus on how different my parents are from my friends, they're actually kind of funny. And it turned out that when I'm not letting myself feel decidedly blase, sights are even kind of exciting. I pet a giraffe, I was in the tallest building in the entire southern hemisphere, and I stomped through the woods looking for Lord of the Rings filming locations. I had more than a good time. My winter in July was even... magical. It sparked some smugness in my patient friends when I got home, but I was the real winner.
It wasn't until I started the school year that I realized the importance of what I'd learned. I was trudging through some homework that I'd been avoiding all day when I realized it was just another New Zealand. I didn't have to hate it. I'd been spending my entire life deciding whether or not something was going to be wonderful or miserable before hand and reacting accordingly. But now that I've started paying attention to how things really are, I haven't come by a single second that didn't have something to appreciate.
I always knew the idea that 'life is what you make it' meant that how much effort I put in is how much effort I get out, but I always thought there was some external receiver who had to make the transaction. If I put work into the world, by doing my homework or helping out a friend, the world would reward me when the teacher gave me an A and the friend gave me thanks. The effort I put in to being happy comes back right away and never passes through moody fate's hands. I can't say how comforting that idea is.