Undergraduate / 'something new to slip my bookmark into' - Common App Supplement- personal narrative [5]

Prompt: "Literature is the best way to overcome death. My father, as I said, is an actor. He's the happiest man on earth when he's performing, but when the show is over, he's sad and troubled. I wish he could live in the eternal present, because in the theater everything remains in memories and photographs. Literature, on the other hand, allows you to live in the present and to remain in the pantheon of the future.

Literature is a way to say, I was here, this is what I thought, this is what I perceived. This is my signature, this is my name."

Ilan Stavans, Professor of Spanish, Amherst College
From "The Writer in Exile: an interview with Ilan Stavans" by Saideh Pakravan for the fall 1993 issue of The Literary Review

The essay should be a personal narrative inspired by this quote.

Word limit: < 300 words

Alphabetically, by author and then by title. My selection is focused, cool, and dignified (Shoe Addicts Anonymous excluded). I wouldn't dare bend a cover or crack a binding. My mother's adage, "Books are your friends; here's a bookmark, honey" is crisp in my mind as I glance at the page number I'll pick up on tomorrow night.

However, on many summer evenings I ignore the passage of time for three or four hours, and fall to sleep without noting my page, splaying my novel face down. With luck, that bookmark will be found sequestered in the sheets before laundry day.

There's usually a short stack beside my bed (A Separate Peace, The History of Love) waiting to be leisurely enjoyed around 11:00 pm with a cold glass of sun tea. These are my comfort foods, easy to consume after years of digestion with a pen in one hand. On my desk, a solitary, hefty thing: De Beauvoir. She only takes up an 8'x6' space on my desk, but the brevity of the discussion inside makes her heavier than the Merriam-Webster single-handedly convexing my top shelf. I was led to her by Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Souls of Adolescent Girls, one of the first covers I opened in the ongoing journey to understand my world.

In an exodus from my former self, I packed away three rows of my bookcase for the back-to-school library drive. Now, only two rows are filled, down from five. The empty shelves are much larger than I realized, 3'6'' long and tall enough for all but the most dramatic work. The empowerment fiction and Philippe Claudel is all gone. It's time for something new to slip my bookmark into.

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I would really appreciate any help with this!

Undergraduate / Need advice on subject for extracurricular activity (a mentoring club) [5]

Ok, so here's my dilemma.

I'm involved in a variety of things.

Debate, Model UN, Gay-Straight Alliance, a volunteer group for my elementary school

I have been most successful in debate, as it is the activity I have participated in since 9th grade and the activity I've had the most significant opportunity to utilize.

Model UN and the GSA were not available at my school until my junior year.
I hold officer positions in all of the activities listed above.

However, the activity I am most passionate about is not any of these. It is a mentoring club. I had teacher sponsors, a curriculum, rough lesson plan, proposal, and posters completed. However, the principal of the school refused to sign the proposal (she was the only person whose official approval I absolutely needed to proceed) because she was resigning at the end of the year. We did not find out who the new principal was until a week before school began, and the meeting I scheduled with him to discuss the club has been postponed because of construction at the school and the general chaos that occurs every year at the beginning of the semester.

Should I write about this club or one of the other activities?

Undergraduate / 'My cousin, Trent' - ApplyTexas Significant Influence [15]

Prompt: Write an essay in which you tell us about someone who has made an impact on your life and explain how and why this person is important to you.

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A Rebellion of the Meek

My cousin, Trent, is brilliant. He makes stunning artwork, sometimes painting for 23 hours a day. He listens to the same song until he's gotten everything he can out of it and never needs to listen to it again. He introduced me to terrible '90's sci-fi, and 3:00 AM walks to the Shell Station. I idolized him for the better part of my childhood, filling my CD player with Nirvana and British punk to impress him when he asked what I was listening to. If he approved, I was elated. If he found the pop hits album I'd received for my birthday, I moped until the next opportunity to show him how cool I was arose.

In my unquestioning awe, I steadfastly ignored his flaws. I knew he was a little wild, at least according to my straight-laced mother. But, his shenanigans seemed harmless enough. Then, my parents decided I was old enough to be let in on the prolific family gossip. Over the next year, shock shook my adoration; Trent dropped out of school? Trent got arrested? I was heartbroken, but that didn't stop me from spending four hours the night before the annual camping trip downloading acceptable artists to my iPod, hoping he hadn't changed.

But changed he had. "I've done meth, but never cocaine. That stuff's bad," Trent confided one night, nodding authoritatively at me over Janga blocks. I nodded back, mechanically cataloging everything he said as I tried to hide my bewildered disgust. He continued, "I've held it in my hand, but I didn't do it." Pressing my palms into the floor, I wondered if he was going to preemptively answer my questions. Being twelve, my knowledge of these things was extremely limited, and I listened charily to his confession of experiences until our uncle called us outside to watch the sunset.

During the drive home, the car was unusually quiet. My sister was fast asleep, and my mom was talked out after spending the week with my aunt. Without anything to distract me, I reflected on visiting Trent. It had been strange, seeing him after hearing about his mistakes. He didn't seem as invincible, as impossibly suave. For the first time, I wasn't sure I wanted to prove myself to him. After all, his smooth words and breadth of knowledge didn't matter if he didn't use them to be the cousin he was supposed to be. Having decided this, I put on Kelly Clarkson's new album and loved it all the way home.

The frivolous importance of Trent's opinions on my musical taste masked my fear of judgment. By copying him, I didn't have to face the perils of my own individuality. Realizing that he wasn't perfect allowed me to open up to myself, and to embrace all my formerly guilty pleasures. Today, I can't name a Kelly Clarkson song to save my life, but I can name a thousand things I would be happy to share with anyone.

Undergraduate / 'Teaspoons are Excellent' UT on an issue of importance [5]

This is my first draft, so it's probably not going to be all that great. The exact prompt is "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."

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A (Tea)Spoonful of Sugar

The slender sister of the tablespoon, the teaspoon, is 1/3 the size of her older sibling with a more oblong bowl and a shorter handle. She is used primarily to stir sugar into coffee and measure the little ingredients with big mouths, like cinnamon and chili powder. I, however, use her to eat poblano soup, ice cream sundaes, and everything in between. This habit can be a hassle, especially when attempting to maneuver chunky potatoes and stew meat onto my utensil of choice. While the teaspoon's smaller surface area seems to put her at a disadvantage to the tablespoon, her size is actually quite beneficial when it comes to addressing the serious issues of medicine dosage and obesity.

As a small child, I hated being sick. Not because I had to miss school and eat ice cream all day, but because of the medicine I had to take to get better. That stuff was an unnatural pink color with a saccharine smell, and the foulest flavor I've ever been subjected to. The very sight of that unassuming brown bottle was enough to send me running behind the nearest large object, howling that I already felt better. Inevitably, however, my mother would pry my mouth open and, holding my nose, I would gulp down the vile drink. Luckily for me, my mother understood the dosage instructions for medicine and never gave me the wrong amount. Unfortunately, many parents do not know the difference between TSP (teaspoon) and TBSP (tablespoon), and accidentally cause their children to overdose. This was one of the leading causes of calls to the Poison Control Center in 2010, and one of the most easily preventable. If everyone just did a way with their tablespoons, there would be fewer troubles for kids everywhere.

The likelihood of teaspoons preserving America's health would be much higher if they could tackle obesity. How is that possible? Well, having extensive TSP experience with a variety of mediums (ranging from easily vanquished puddings to tricky grapefruits and trickier still lasagnas), I am sure eliminating the tablespoon from common cutlery will have an impact on the American waistline. The reason I believe this is simple math-the tablespoon is three times larger than the teaspoon, and can thus hold way more grub. So, when someone spoons up some delicious mashed potatoes, he is spooning up three times more than he could with a teaspoon. This enables "shoveling," an activity in which a person eats so quickly he doesn't even taste it. The result often include overeating, because the stomach doesn't have time to tell the brain its full before the person moves on to their next target. To keep up this volume of intake with a teaspoon, a person would have to eat very rapidly, which would make him look ridiculous. Most people don't like to look ridiculous, so if forced to use the teaspoon, they will eat slower and more carefully, giving the stomach more time to say, "Hey! I'm done now!"

For these reasons, the tablespoon should be retired for all but the mixing bowl, and the teaspoon should be given her dues next to the fork and knife. If these thoughts are taken into consideration before setting the table each night, many Americans will have a higher quality of life.

Undergraduate / what order should these sentences go in? UT Austin Plan II Essay [2]

The prompt is "Please write five sentences describing yourself, your life, and your experiences that taken together form an accurate view of who you are.

Be creative.
Do not list what was provided in the extracurricular activities section.
Please number the sentences 1 through 5."

1. The Dalai Lama is so filled with light, so genuinely kind, and so humble that I nearly cried just standing before him while he pushed back the chair designated especially for him so it would be in line with all of the others.

2. Looking up and finding an unexpected path, putting my foot down at just the right angle, the tight feeling of holding on, watching everything happening so far below; Rock climbing is exhilarating.

3. Mud splattered past my knees, hair sticking to the back of my neck, my ankle pangs from stepping in a ditch while shooting an assist to the striker, but it's alright, because when I'm sliding into someone twice my size, racing for that ball, I am alive.

4. My vision, Anythought.com: A place where people can post any ideas they have, no matter the complexity (or simplicity), and others can discuss ways to improve these ideas and make them real-anywhere in the world, everyone can help shape a single idea into perfect practice.

5. When I was little, I hated writing my name because I could never get the cursive "F" right, with its strange hook and dangerous curves, but now my letter is just the way I want it to be: looping and easy and happy and proud.

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It's 974 characters. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions to improve the quality of these sentences

Undergraduate / 'The office workers' - Common App EC essay about debate [11]

It is 1076 characters with spaces, so I think I need to cut it down. So please let me know what is superfluous, any grammatical mistakes (I'm not sure if it should be I or me in "and of her mother knowing it was I on the phone..."), and I guess how the essay makes you feel. Do you think it's right for the topic?

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The office workers stare at my debate partner and I as we try our best to be quiet while carrying 20 pounds of paper and an intimidating collection of pens down a flight of stairs. It's not easy, but we make it to the street with only a few minor disasters. Then, we scream.

A few years ago, I wouldn't have shouted in celebration in the middle of a crowded Manhattan sidewalk. I would have grinned, certainly. But making noise, even raising my voice above a whisper, would have been out of the question. In fact, until joining debate in 9th grade, I barely spoke at all. My childhood was filled with my best friend coaxing me to sing, and of her mother knowing it was I on the phone if she couldn't hear "hello."

But when a friend convinced me to join debate, all of that changed. I found a place where it was encouraged to say all the things I thought, where even the most esoteric ideas were lent an ear. I loved it, and my voice grew louder and louder, culminating in the jubilant scream I had held in since the judges made a "3-0 decision for the affirmative." I am heard.