Undergraduate / common app essay - my apprach on being homeless [5]

Criticisms welcomed!! :)

"Hey, can I borrow a rubber?"

The first time I talked to Aaron, with his large rimmed glasses and squinty eyes, he refused to lend me a rubber. I called him 'gay'. However, we both didn't belong in our private school and had parents whom we could never connect to, and maybe that's why we became the best of friends. We wanted someone to look up to. But we were young, we were naïve, and we had no idea what the future had in store for us.

As the years crept by, Aaron changed. Fuelled by a deteriorating relationship with his parents, he began to depend upon cigarettes and alcohol. It wasn't long before he started drugs and with that came the urge to get involved in fights. I, on the other hand, coped by crying to the school counsellor, reading Petroski and locking myself in my room. We became two different people under the same pressure, yet I still loved and admired him. He had the confidence and the resolve I wanted. We both were never happy at home, yet he always knew how to look ahead. Unlike him, I could never really think for myself, and I certainly wasn't fit make important decisions like how to live by myself.

Senior year brought the start of the separation of us, as best friends do when their perspectives on life begin to differ. I was left empty and incomplete after he was expelled. But it left me time to put our relationship in perspective. Aaron taught me to grow up. I was and still am somewhat of an introvert, but he helped me leave my shell and experience the ocean outside. I did things with him that I would never have done on my own - standing up to bullies, sleeping in backyards, riding on motorcycles, crazy things. Thanks to Aaron, I learnt to be independent, yet I was never alone. He taught the importance of washing my own clothes, paying my own rent and above all, never letting my circumstances dictate my outcome.

Ever since he disappeared from my life, I have tried harder to look beyond appearances. Others saw Aaron as a rebellious teen and law-breaker. But outside appearances, I realise, are often deceiving. Today, I reach out and make bonds with people easier. There was a time when I saw my parents in the supermarket, looking as intimidating as always. Luckily for me, I decided to talk to them, and after a few minutes of conversation, we decided to have dinner the following week. If it weren't for my relationship with Aaron, I would have never had the courage to talk to them ever again.

There are times when I regret and miss him, and wish we were still young. But along my journey, I realise that we all change, and my experiences have shaped who I am today. Change is only what happens when you discover yourself, and it is what creates your perspective on life. I watched the person dearest to me run down the wrong path. I wished that I could have stepped in and said no. When I finally did, it was too late. But along the way, I learnt an important lesson. Those who break the rules of the community are trash. But you know what? Those who fail to take care of their friends are even lower than trash.

Undergraduate / 'valuable individual identity' - COMMON AP ESSAY [2]

PLEASE BE CRITICAL, ill promise to help you back!

In my six-year-old mind, I see my father in the armour he had on when he combated the boogie monster under my bed. What mattered to me then was my father; because he represented the chivalric honour code of a lost medieval age by which I measured myself. Though as I grew up, my father would often get drunk and have fits of anger and along with that came the realisation that he was also human. With the loss of this ideal, I was forced to confront a far more adult world whose hypocrisies were revealed by divorce and abandonment, and through the use of witty ripostes, I distanced myself from a world that without my fatherly ideals left me thoroughly disillusioned. My problem though, far from being too misanthropic, was that I could never reconcile myself to the loss of my ideals, instead I would spend the next few years of my life trying to recover the ideal I had lost by being obedient.

When I met Aaron in the seventh grade, it was like finding the missing part of my heart. We didn't belong in our private school and had parents whom we could never connect to and that's why we never left each other's side. However, as the years went by, he changed. Fuelled by his deteriorating relationship with his parents, he began to depend upon cigarettes and alcohol. It wasn't long before he started drugs and with that came the urge to get involved in fights. We became two different people under the same pressure, yet I still loved and admired him. He had the confidence and the resolve I wanted. We were never happy at home, yet he always knew how to look ahead. Unlike him, I could never really think for myself, and I certainly wasn't fit to decide to live by myself.

Senior year brought his sudden expulsion, leaving me empty and incomplete. It was only after his loss that I was able to put our relationship in perspective. Aaron helped me to grow up. He taught me that there are specific ideals we must lose - in my case, the ideal of heroism my parents represented - and the individual identity we should never give up in the pursuit of what is lost. I was and still am somewhat of an introvert, but he helped me leave my shell and experience the ocean outside. I did things with him that I would never have done on my own - standing up to bullies, sleeping in backyards, riding on motorcycles, crazy things. He taught the importance of washing my own clothes, paying my own rent and above all, never letting my circumstances dictate my outcome. Thanks to Aaron, I learnt to be independent; for in the pursuit of what was lost, I had given up something that we ought never to lose, the individual identity that made me human.

I still miss him, and occasionally wish to be young. But we all grow up, and the experiences have shaped who I am today. Indeed, growing up engaged me with the loss of things, but to my understanding it was the things that have been lost and not the act of losing them that truly engages me - the pursuit of childhood ideals which each of us must ultimately lose, and the gain of a far more valuable individual identity of which we should never let go.