Undergraduate / 'The desire to be free' - German needs help with MIT essay [16]

I applying to MIT from german and need a little bit of helping.
Please not be so critical, because my English is not well.
Seriously guys, I at times struggle with the right words and would appreciate any form of feedback very much
since my ear is not really trained to English essays.

The task is:

What attribute of your personality are you most proud of, and how has it impacted your life so far? This could be your creativity, effective leadership, sense of humor, integrity, or anything else you'd like to tell us about. (*) (200-250 words)

The desire to be free is the core of my personality. Please wait a second before you toss my application into the "takes-himself-too-seriously" trash can and let me explain.

Freedom is the autonomy of the mind, which means two things for me.
Firstly, I am always critical about established opinions and open to new ideas in order to grasp the world intellectually. Working at the "Bahnhofsmission", I poured out coffee and chatted with homeless. These people demonstrated to me that, contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not money that makes you peaceful, but the knowledge that you own yourself.

Similarly, I learned much about cultural misunderstandings when I took part in a movie project that explored the difficult relationship between Jewish and Muslim teenagers by letting them talk with each other.

These experiences give me clearness of mind, but they also make me push the boundaries of my knowledge, be it through reading, talking or experiencing things myself.

Secondly, I push my willpower to new limits.
As part of this endeavor I did 3 years of boxing, took part in a marathon team, , and switched to a polyphasic sleep schedule. When I succeed at these things, I feel the seemingly endless power of mind.

By attaining those feelings often enough I will hopefully eventually become free and just be what I deep down really want to be. Since this is the most unique and wonderful state of mind I consider the passion for freedom the best part of me.

Since I still have to write tons of essays I am now hyperventilating, so you could do a good dead by helping me.
I now will start to review some of the other essays here...

Undergraduate / 'polyphasic sleep' - MIT Biggest challenge [11]

I really feel that this could need some revision and proof-reading,
and it's cut down violently to the word limit.
I am very grateful for everybody who will help me out here.

Tell us about the most significant challenge you've faced or something important that didn't go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?(*) (200-250 words)

An internal flame started to burn when I first read about polyphasic sleep. By sleeping several times a day, you can reduce your daily sleep to four hours. This idea contradicts common sense and mainstream science, and sounds plain crazy. This impossibility was the source of my motivation.

My first two attempts were distressing failures. Naively, I believed that willpower would suffice for the hard adaptation period. However, I had often trouble to fall asleep or to get out of bed, resulting in sleep deprivation and self-reproaches. Both times flu ended the experiment miserably.

Because it is common to fail several times, I could accept failing once, but after the second failure I was very upset with myself.
Realizing that preparation was necessary, I decided to try one last time.
The following two weeks were like an uninterrupted fight with both Klitschko brothers, you really want to fall down but, if you do, you will not stand up again. I won this fight by increasing my self-discipline through watching inspirational videos, using "Lose yourself" as my alarm and taking cold showers only. I downloaded sleep-meditations, started sleeping on the floor and adopted a get-up-routine. After a month polyphasic sleep was as natural to me as breathing.

Afterwards I learned speed-reading and experimented with lucid dreaming, which is the ability to control your dreams while you sleep.
These experiences allowed me to get a glimpse of the amazingly endless human potential, and they filled me with passion to explore the human mind.

Undergraduate / "Diversity in kids" -Describe the world you come from MIT [7]

I will greatly value any form of feedback.
Please feel also free to tell me what impression this essay leaves with you.

Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?(*) (200-250 words)

You know this clichéd image where kids of every race hold hands under a rainbow, smiling? Well, somehow this represents my childhood.
When I was ten my family lived in a social housing district, where most of the families were immigrants. There was a peaceful playground in our neighborhood where the kids went to play. Although we had different backgrounds and races we became very good friends because there was one thing that transcended all cultural barriers: Pokémon. Our parents were not really concerned about our education, but they wanted the kids to keep quiet, and so they bought us a game boy.

We boys would sit next to each other on a bench and play game boy, united by our love for the little creatures. Moreover, everybody could get emotional support if there had been another fight at home. If my childhood was a picture, it would be kids of different colors sitting smilingly on a bench with their game boys connected by a data cable.

To my great disappointment I noticed as a teenager that some Muslim teens in my football club had prejudices against me as a Jew, which made me realize that the relationship between cultures is not as simple as a child perceives it to be. However, I still have a strong love for diversity and looking back at the image of my childhood gives me hope that through cultural exchange every barrier can be brought down.