Undergraduate / To Complete a Masterpiece (CommonApp Essay) [5]

Please read over my Common App essay and give feedback on it. English isn't my first language, so it's a pretty rough piece. It'll be very helpful if I get some guidance on how to improve. Thank you!

Prompt: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

TO COMPLETE A MASTERPIECE

I picked up the mug for a sip, only to be greeted by the faded aroma of the coffee long gone. There was no clock ticking, I hated that obnoxious sound. The vast expanse of my table was an overwhelming mess but beautiful nonetheless. A bunch of thick paper stuck out from under a stack of heavy paperback books, a jar full of paintbrushes of every possible size and shape, the dirtiest pot of water imaginable, a porcelain plate where liquid paint took the form of murky puddles, and of course, a box of watercolor right next to a blank piece of paper taped down to a cardboard. Then there was me- sitting in front of the paper, waiting for inspiration to strike.

I remember the time I bought my first watercolor set. I paid the storekeeper with two crisp 500 taka notes,that my parents had happily traded for a box full of change. I had hoarded all my money for a year just so that I could buy a set of paint. Because it wasn't just any paint, it was watercolor. That night, I sat down with everything I needed to create a watercolor masterpiece. One hour later, I ended up with a muddy mess on the paper. Why would such a plain act of wading a wet brush on paper produce such different results for me and the artists I grew up watching? Whatever it was, I wanted to know, so I kept working harder and harder

As the weeks progressed, my skills with the brush slowly began to improve. Some days I wanted to throw away all the supplies into a box and shove it into the depth of my belongings.Other days, I was the artist: mixing perfect shades of umbers and lilacs and creating my self-proclaimed magnus opuses with tiny flicks of my wrist. During those first months of endless trial and error , every single night , the wastepaper basket in my room would be filled up with crumpled paper balls . I would hear my father letting out exhausted sighs every time he'd empty the basket into the trash bag . More often than not he'd find me at the break of dawn, sprawled over my mess of a table after a long night of failed experiments, dreaming in watercolor. Finally, after years of obstinacy, I found a hint of an answer- maybe needed to let the paint flow!

So, I let the paint flow. I nudged it with my brush from time to time to transform it into what I desired. To my amazement, the paint followed! That revelation opened an array of possibilities, and soon enough I was dabbing the paint with tissue papers, sprinkling salt on the drying paint and even using my fingers instead of brushes. The further I walked into the realm of watercolor, the more I longed to explore its nuances.

The thrill I experienced from unraveling the folds of watercolor wasn't confined to the artist within me; I realized this thrill has been nestled inside me for as long as I can remember. I've dabbled in classical music, explored astronomy on my rooftop, stumbled upon rocks to find the treasure called geology, all in pursuit of the fabled shiver of excitement. I've delved into the depths of Einstein's relativity, imagined Schrödinger's cat purr inside that deadly box, grown cultures of E. coli at my school lab, picked apart multivariable calculus, all to feel that amazing rush of adrenaline again. I explore, not the world around me, but depths of my conscience with the world surrounding me. My mind is that taped down blank piece of paper, the world is my perfect color-palette, and I strive to be the masterpiece.

In a sense, I exist to explore.