Indy95
Dec 25, 2011
Undergraduate / 'my offer of friendship to you' - Stanford - Note to Roommate [3]
PROMPT: Virtually all of Stanford's undergraduates live on campus. Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate - and us - know you better.
Mine's a tad long but here it is:
Well, it looks like these next four years we are going to be partners in this grand adventure called life. In my experience with life, I have learned the hardest thing to comprehend is human behavior because it is just so varied. I have found that the best way to deal with these myriad situations is to be assertive but also receptive of others.
These perspectives of mine solidified during my childhood. I was born in the small town of Monroe, Louisiana, home to not much other than ubiquitous hospitality and delectable crawfish. This compassionate environment fostered a healthy development, but at age four, my family moved to the Midwest town of Lawrence, Kansas. There, the winters were colder and at first, so were the people. Everything seemed intriguingly daunting, and the food tasted slightly foreign. I began school that year, and my newfound acquaintances were vastly different from the adults I had always been around. They were frank, brash, candid, and competitive. Nonetheless, I tried introducing them to my interests such as chess. Hesitant at first, they had all managed to beat me a few weeks later. In the same way, I did not know what a "Jayhawk" was and I sure did not care about the formalities of basketball, but their tenacity got me to love the sport. By the time we were in second grade, we had developed many of the same interests, or we at least understood each others' differences.
Just when I had started to acquaint myself, we moved again, this time to Evansville, Indiana. Many of my new peers shared very little common ground with me, but we learned to accept each others' uniqueness as we matured. My cultural tastes expanded. For the first time, I started to love going out to watch football games. Similarly, my friends learned to appreciate my avid interests in science and music, attending my concerts or asking about my science fair endeavors.
Now that we are on the same path, I warmly extend my offer of friendship to you, roommate. You might find violin rosin scattered across the floor, rock music blaring from the stereo, or the TV turned perpetually to Comedy Central; it is my way of life. But, I readily urge you to steal the TV remote and change the channel, because if nothing else, I am always willing to broaden my perspectives.
END
Looking for opinions and criticisms. I feel like there's a lot of unnecessary material I can cut out, but since this is my essay, I'm pretty bad with finding things that *seem* important but really aren't. Thanks in advance!
PROMPT: Virtually all of Stanford's undergraduates live on campus. Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate - and us - know you better.
Mine's a tad long but here it is:
Well, it looks like these next four years we are going to be partners in this grand adventure called life. In my experience with life, I have learned the hardest thing to comprehend is human behavior because it is just so varied. I have found that the best way to deal with these myriad situations is to be assertive but also receptive of others.
These perspectives of mine solidified during my childhood. I was born in the small town of Monroe, Louisiana, home to not much other than ubiquitous hospitality and delectable crawfish. This compassionate environment fostered a healthy development, but at age four, my family moved to the Midwest town of Lawrence, Kansas. There, the winters were colder and at first, so were the people. Everything seemed intriguingly daunting, and the food tasted slightly foreign. I began school that year, and my newfound acquaintances were vastly different from the adults I had always been around. They were frank, brash, candid, and competitive. Nonetheless, I tried introducing them to my interests such as chess. Hesitant at first, they had all managed to beat me a few weeks later. In the same way, I did not know what a "Jayhawk" was and I sure did not care about the formalities of basketball, but their tenacity got me to love the sport. By the time we were in second grade, we had developed many of the same interests, or we at least understood each others' differences.
Just when I had started to acquaint myself, we moved again, this time to Evansville, Indiana. Many of my new peers shared very little common ground with me, but we learned to accept each others' uniqueness as we matured. My cultural tastes expanded. For the first time, I started to love going out to watch football games. Similarly, my friends learned to appreciate my avid interests in science and music, attending my concerts or asking about my science fair endeavors.
Now that we are on the same path, I warmly extend my offer of friendship to you, roommate. You might find violin rosin scattered across the floor, rock music blaring from the stereo, or the TV turned perpetually to Comedy Central; it is my way of life. But, I readily urge you to steal the TV remote and change the channel, because if nothing else, I am always willing to broaden my perspectives.
END
Looking for opinions and criticisms. I feel like there's a lot of unnecessary material I can cut out, but since this is my essay, I'm pretty bad with finding things that *seem* important but really aren't. Thanks in advance!