Undergraduate / A nostalgic experience with the reality of humanity. [3]

Prompt: Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

I signed up for Leisure Life to return a favor to the disadvantaged. Facing reality, it is only a matter of time before I will undergo once more their permanent condition through one form or another. I have already encountered it once when I was a helpless infant, and I will face it again in the days to come whether I like it or not. From being an infant, sick, broken (spiritually, mentally, and physically), and aged, a time will indeed come when I too will be simply labeled - a human with special needs. The class reminded me of a time when I was labeled E.L.D. (ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT) Student for five years, the feelings I obtained were related to embarrassment and dishonor. I could not believe I was segregated from the rest of my peers, just because English was not my first language. However, years progressed, and I gained academic momentum and was removed from the special program by the fifth grade. Today I have managed to be a top English student in my school; I could not have reached this position if I did not feel the courage to strive forward just like my friends labeled disabled, push forward to survive every year. Only when an individual is tagged, empathy will wander. To think of them as helpless is naive for they too have a destiny as everyone else. Seeing their happiness marked by their faces, energy, and motivation is the best gift I could have possibly received in this world that is not contaminated by business and profit. Perhaps these individuals were sent by God to test humanity on how well it works with the weak. Serving the forgotten in this era was eye-opening and filled with internal happiness. Undergoing a severe operation when I was five, and breaking my left elbow three times, I believe I have gotten a brief taste of how my friends in classroom 648 feel daily. It is only during hardships when I discovered who really cared and changed perspective, separating family from people, realizing that friends do not exist. It was only then when I could accept my failures and sincerely repent, hence money all of a sudden loses its precious value. Perhaps these memorable times are despised and pitied upon, but what if they really just marked the beginning of my golden age? It represents a time of self-reflection and a humbling life lesson that penetrates the soul and cries out for a blossoming transformation. Many will insist that taking care of others is simple or not their responsibility, but it is only when a person is involved in a life other than their own and of those close to them, that individuals can clear their minds of pride and arrogance and see that they too would be physically helpless in the last phase of their life, even if it is for a brief second, for one does not leave this earth without paying the accumulating fee that everyone is responsible for.

Please may I get feedback of all forms...grammar, structure, content..etc.

Undergraduate / Culture Club - an enhancement for the community (Rice University Supplement Question) [2]

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. (150 word limit)

Rice University Supplement Question

Any form of feedback and or suggestions are welcomed . Thank You!

To me, Culture Club is an opportunity to give back to my community, family, and myself, through various performances. From H.O.P.E(Helping Other People Eat), Rotary (serving the elderly), Special Olympics, and cultural festivals to Anti-Cancer Community runs, Community clean-ups, and tutoring students in the core subjects, Culture Club, provides the ultimate opportunity for students to work with diverse individuals. Instantly after each informative and rally speech, I realized that I possessed an influential voice; a voice that gathered and motivated students to perform in communal events. As public relations officer, I primarily assembled my club members into a variety of teams after breaking the chains of shame and lameness attached with helping disadvantaged individuals and picking up litter in front of other teenagers. I plan on bringing this intrinsic motivation and divergent voice to Rice where I am sure that I could enhance the University's culture and its surrounding community.

Undergraduate / A realization within culture... Supplement essay for the Princeton application [2]

Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay. 650 words.

This is a supplement essay for the Princeton application. May I please get all types of constructive feedback. Do I need to add or delete words???

Thank you for time :)

"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Every pressure from Hell to Heaven fell on me. Crushed. Devastated. I was exhausted form the constant tribulations, but I knew they were far from ending. I got up from from my kneeling position, tears streaming down my face. For the first time in fourteen years I felt the plethora of constrained emotion gush out of my eyeballs.

"No more. No more Anthony. The time has come where you must adapt to your environment or you will face the other side of natural selection." I had said to myself.

The miserable year was finally coming to end. I could not wait for a new year cleanse.

Early in the year, my father had innocently gotten arrested. Another of those Misunderstandings that leaves families surviving off of food stamps during times of depression. To add to my misery my mother had just gone off to the hospital to get stones from her stomach removed, right after I had finally come home from a severe liver operation.

I could have stayed home and used current circumstances as a valid excuse to miss school, but I decided to go. I have had perfect attendance since kindergarten and I was not going to ruin it. Besides I would not give into the internal pain I felt and I could not miss chemistry; we were going to perform the Iodine Clock Reaction Lab. I am passionate about chemistry, it helps calm me down. I had strong hope that everything would reconstruct itself on New Year. But before that could occur, pain and stress, twins, were secretly working together and chipping away at my sanity.

Was I in depression? "No. I am a man, I do not get depressed." I said to myself.

A few weeks later, after finals. After my parents had returned home, I could not bare with my feelings. All of a sudden I stop, I feel like as if lightning had jolted every bone in my bone. I realize that I am paralyzed, head to toe. Silence. When I am released from the tight grip of the devil, I get the solution to my problem. I know exactly what I had to do.

Calming down from my altered state, I closed my eyes once more, and strapped off my Macho armor. The armor that had been culturally stitched to my spirit when I was three. I love my Mexican culture and would preserve every aspect of it except for gender roles. I felt like I could breath again. I felt free and alive. My mind felt liberated.

I do not believe that I should be destined to work in the fields, hold back my thoughts or emotions because it is not Macho or put my head down when humiliated. I want to be free, make my own decisions, fall and get up on my own, and learn form my own mistakes. I believe there a whole world of colorful explosions awaits my presence. Awaiting to be rediscovered and reinvented by a new generation of thrill-seeking individuals that are willing to experiment with fresh ideas. I have hope in the future, hope in my family, hope in myself. I have matured.

With my ideology and Princeton's unique preceptorial system and freshmen seminars, I am certain that I would be able to obtain the sensation of intellectual freedom I aspire. At Princeton, the active learning environment will challenge my claims the art of critical thinking. Princeton would provide me an atmosphere where I can continue to developing my voice.With all the qualities of Princeton, I plan to conduct research alongside my professors on the chemistry of Diabetes, environmental phenomenon, petroleum, and chemicals found in our everyday components, where I am sure that I could give Princeton a healthful quality. I would like to be a Tiger; an individual that combines fun, extracurricular activities, and academics into one deeply cherished symbol- Princeton.