Undergraduate / Exposed to counting. How the quest for a shooting star shaped my life. [10]

Common app personal statement! criticize anything.

I was born in Rwanda,a sub Saharan country. I realized that most of the essays from my friends focused on struggles from sub Saharan countries, like poverty and self pity driven essays. I tried to write an essay that would be unique.

English is not my native language;I will appreciate your help.

The prompt:
Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

How the quest for a shooting star shaped my life.

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I was exposed to counting at the age of 5. At school, we would count stones or toys for practice but when I was home at night, I looked at the stars and tried to count them. I was told that it was an impossible task, but I knew that it was no trouble trying. In my counting, I would go up to 10 stars and start to lose focus. Did I count this one earlier? The task was never accomplished. One day I heard of shooting stars at a local radio. In our language, due to its brief appearance, a shooting star may be translated to something like "That which is seen by one person." A burning meteor in the atmosphere; I had never seen one, yet. The local radio ignited my curiosity, and I set my quest to seeing a shooting star.

When I first started stargazing, I thought it would not take a long time to see the first shooting star. I would come from school, do my homework and start looking for a fast moving bright object in the starry sky. After five years, stargazing was no longer a search for a shooting star, but a period reserved for thinking the big questions; the time to examine my life. I was unlucky to wait for so long, but the waiting was fun and I did enjoy staying out late lost in deep thoughts, discovering myself. I did not research on the availability of shooting stars in my location, I did not bother. And YES, I did not know what Google was back then. My quest grew blurry and confusing; I was not sure if I took those 10 or 15 minutes of my precious time waiting for a shooting star, thus, I started to question the reason I was doing that. It was one night, 12 years later that my hard work paid off; I saw my very first shooting star. The historic event was so brief that I thought it was just a daydream; my heart started racing, and I was filled with joy. I did not know what I should do. The obsession that it was a daydream haunted me later on; I was confused about reality and dreams. Fortunately, this confusion broadened my curiosity on subject related to philosophy of existence that I inspected thoroughly.

The experience for waiting and realizing the dream had a remarkable impact in my life; it has shaped my perspective on how this complex world works. When I look back to everything that ever happened to me, I always find ways to relate it to the shooting star quest. For instance, in high school I had a desire of getting ranked in the top 20% or so in my class; the urge to seeing a shooting star. I would find myself in the trimester struggling to balance my class performance and the extracurricular activities; being an Editor in Chief in our high school's media club, the students had hope in us. I would sacrifice my grades in favor of the media club's success. My grades sank, just like the time I was not sure about my quest. My senior year was the time I flashed back and desired another shooting star in my life; the desire was not being in the top 20% in the class but to strive to get the famous 73 in Rwanda National Exams. 73 is the perfect score, you get that score and you are in the 99th percentile in the National Exams' ranking. Setting for that journey was like trying to count the stars, I knew it was close to impossible. Knowing the feeling I had about the shooting star was my sole motivation, I started hitting the books, challenging my knowledge and consulting teachers. It was after three months that the results were out, and I realized that I had, indeed seen my second shooting star.

// I would also like to know if it is OK to use the words Shooting Star referring to a meteor//