Undergraduate / Boarding School Essay; I'm significantly interested in philosophy and psychology [3]

So i made another draft. Here it is.List and describe your level of interest and participation in school activities (school, volunteer groups, athletics, music, etc.). List any awards or honors you received in the past two years. In which activities do you plan to participate in the future?

I enjoy the subject of philosophy, though have never taken a formal class in it, but I have read some overviews and outlines, and am currently plodding through Plato's The republic.

I maintain a casual interest in both psychology and psychiatry.
I play the violin.

I have belonged to a youth group for over three years. We do some community service, including caroling to the homes of elderly parishioners.
I have played soccer and volley ball with a homeschooling group. I played hockey for over four years and became quite proficient in skating. This skill translated into my brief excursion into skiing. I plan to take up skiing again.

For two years I rowed crew in both the skull and sweep styles. I plan to keep rowing.

My latest jaunt into the sports world has taken the form of fencing. As I have always enjoyed hitting things (and people) with plastic swords. Fencing was natural transition from such antics. I like the individual aspect of fencing. It's you with a three foot long piece of steal versus another similar equipped person. You have to devise a strategy to hit them with the sword and not get hit yourself. I would like to keep o fencing.

Lockheed martin-the major employer in my area-hold an engineering and junior engineering exploration program. I did the latter for two years, then when at high school age I progressed to the former. The middle school level program consisted of several small project throughout the year. These included a Styrofoam steamboat, a hovercraft, and various similar projects, all strategically sized so one person could easily complete them. The one aimed at elders consisted of one team based project-this year it was a computer controlled toy car. The quartet sized teams were supplied with the bare basics; two motors, a raspberry pi, web cam, and an USB chip to connect it to the computer. We were then given a budget of $100 to buy other supplies.

List and describe your level of interest and participation in hobbies, activities and groups not associated with school. List any awards or honors you received in the past two years.

I have a very large collection of Lego's that include many kits. From the basic 100 piece kits to the 3,000 piece Star Destroyer. Lego's also helped spur my passion for story telling. I've attempted to create several stop motion films. Unfortunately my stories and style did not translate into the medium. I won a prize for an original pirate ship at a local fair when I was eleven.

I inherited the ability to cook from my dad who is very good at cooking home style dishes. I cook a variety of styles, especially more exotic genres of food. My mom sarcastically dubbed me the "food intellectual" when I criticized the "pizza" for not meeting-in my opinion my requirements of the high title of pizza.

I like to write fiction. The majority of my stories have an element of the following: space travel, aliens, super human abilities, and occasionally time travel. One reason I love sci-fi so much is that you can do so much with it. While most of my writing has an element of sci-fi, the style and theme of my writing varies drastically. One of my short stories is about frozen chocolate milk giving a drastically average individual strange hallucinations and powers, which eventually lead him to a space ship, then to a planet that is home to a secret order of chocolate milk wielding aliens from varied planets and races. Then on the other hand I have an action filled, character based saga about space pirates who get caught in the middle of a war on space crime waged by the IGSN (intergalactic space union) hell bent on conquering and controlling infinity.

What reading have you enjoyed most in the past year and why?
For pleasure, I read science fiction. One of my favorite books is a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury called The Illustrated Man. The way the stories are told is very poetic and imaginative. Books I've enjoyed within my curriculum include The Age of Fables by Thomas Bulfinch. I like the way Bulfinch breaks all the Greek/Roman, Norse and some Buddhist legend into easy to assimilate pieces. It has greatly helped my writing.

I'm currently reading Plato's The Republic (as I mentioned before), and Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. The former is the gate way to philosophy. I'm also reading Slaughter house five thanks to the TJS staff!

Please note anything more you would like us to know about you.

Please choose one of these statements and then write a 250-500 word response to it.

Describe a person you admire or who has influenced you a great deal.

What makes you the interesting person you are? (be sure to include the qualities you like best about yourself.)

Explain the impact of an event or activity that has created a change in your life or in your way of thinking.

It was 2004 and my mom and her friend Monica were talking about the impending election.
"I'm voting for Bush!" My mom stated with vehemence. From the back seat of our green Nissan Quest, my shrill five year-old voice piped up. "Well I'm voting for John Kerry!" This contradiction took them by surprise. They broke into a fit of laughter. To this day they can't have a conversation without this being brought up, and they start to laugh all over again.

Although back then I disagreed just for the sake of rebellion, this type of behavior marked the inception of my walk off the beaten trail; literally and figuratively.

One day I was taking on a hike with my hiking club. I abruptly broke off from the path to blaze my own. As I was walking on the fresh untrodden landscape I spied a superb spot for a picture of a mini-figure. This photograph later made it to a Lego blog that I briefly ran.

Another example of my non-conformity (and) an example of my some what stubborn disposition is the story of how I switched to Linux.
After getting thoroughly fed up with Windows, I searched for an alternative, and found an operating system called Ubuntu. When it first booted I was unable to get it to connect to the Internet. Determined not to let computers get the best of me, I kept persisting, and eventually, with the help of a few computer forums, I eventually managed to get it to connect. By refusing to accept the default operating system, I learned a lot about computers along the way, and found a far superior way of computing. I set up a computer that ran Ubuntu for my Dad and it has since helped him avoid contracting at least two viruses. I have never gone back to Windows.

As a writer, my need for originality has helped to tell unique and often bizarre stories. One of my more recent shorts depicts a cocky hero as he successfully defeats and kills the villain, but fails to stop the solar flare generator, which in turn destroys most of the city he swore to protect. Thus violating two clichés of the superhero genre; namely, the villain never dies, and the hero always stops the threat in time.

One of great worries when I'm writing, is that my stories are not original, or-as Einstein put it "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."That's why I feel I need a good education. My mother always tells me; "You need furniture in your brain to draw from."

She's exactly right.

Now, at a much later age, if I was approached with the question of whom to vote for I would reply "Neither! Politicians are all made of the same material; fools gold!"