Scholarship / Scholarship essay: community service activity Hurricane katrina [2]

Choose the community service activity that is most meaningful to you and describe how you and your community benefited from your involvement. max is 250 words. This is 263. So.. help me cut down on some stuff. Thanks!

People from all walks of life were affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But as it claimed more than 1,800 lives of innocents, America only replied a positive outpouring of aid. This is America.

Nearly four years later, I coincidentally ran into the Habitat for Humanity Activity Coordinator who encouraged me to apply for a Learn and Build Experience program open for high school students. The following summer, I was flying to New Orleans, Louisiana through a Habitat for Humanity scholarship for an all-expense paid trip to help the city revive.

The pictures of New Orleans online and on news channels don't do justice. Even my eyes didn't do justice of what had really happened here in 2005. Houses had holes in their rooftops and numbers on their door - holes that victims had made to escape from the water filling their house more by the minute, numbers that read the number of dead corpses found: 1, 3, 4, 7, and even 15.

My job in New Orleans was to build houses homemade-style from scratch. We designed a floor plan, constructed a truss, put up the foundation for walls, painted the insulation underground, all in hopes for a better future for a victim and his family. Amongst the sweat, the wood dust, and stench of paint, I realized that there's nothing to life but to help others: to be a shoulder for someone fallen, to be a hand for someone reaching out, to be a friend for someone in need. It's true when they say love makes the world go round. This is America.

I'm not sure how I truly feel about this..

Undergraduate / community service Atlanta Korean American Youth Center [3]

need to cut down. don't know if i like my conclusion. prompt is "community service. how it benefited others and yourself".

I remember. Remember like it was yesterday. Just two months after my immigration to America, I was enrolled in Ms. Renner's 2nd grade class. They were learning cursive while I was learning how to curl my tongue to pronounce "r". "Go to Ms. Renner and say 'fuck you,'" my class mates insisted. I didn't understand. I raised my hand and proudly asked in front of the class what "fuck" means. I remember. I remember being humiliated and not even knowing it.

In 2006, nearly seven years later, I perfected English, curling my tongue for those r's. I desperately wanted to do something to help immigrant students feel welcome when entering this land of the unknown and to do something to stop my history from repeating to others. I found an organization called Atlanta Korean American Youth Center, a nonprofit organization that serves to help Korean students in all aspects of academics, social life, and athletics. I raised awareness in the difficulty of Korean immigrated students and advocated for a student youth committee in which a Korean student from each school would represent as a leader for all Korean students. By the next winter, the committee was established. Named as the student executive committee secretary, I designed seasonal SAT classes taught my Emory and GeorgiaTech students and even planned social dance parties to promote interaction between Korean students through non-alcoholic parties.

For the four years I've worked at the Youth Center, I have personally seen alcoholic students and drug-addict students become revived by the many programs that the youth center offers. But the person whom I saw the greatest change was me. I realized that there's nothing to life but to help others: to be a shoulder for someone fallen, to be a hand for someone reaching out, to be a friend for someone in need.

Undergraduate / how i see the world: from blond Barbie hair to tamales. (: [3]

Prompt: Describe how your family background has influenced the way you see the world.

My family moved into our first home in America on my birthday; it was a shabby apartment. I remember my parents and my sister singing me the birthday song in an apartment of nothing but a king-size mattress we found at the apartment dumpster earlier that afternoon. "Your birthday present is America," my mom had said as I blew out the seven candles.

From a world of one color to a world of many, I was mesmerized by the Barbie-like blond hair that I had only seen on TV. I felt different, distant, and distinguished in this myriad of different colors. To my surprise, on the first day of school, kids of different hair color, hair texture, and skin color approached me. I befriended a group of African American girls who taught me STEP dance, a traditional dance ritual of African Americans. My best friend was a blond Caucasian who taught me how to tie shoelaces in the traditional American "bunny ear" fashion. My Hispanic classmate introduced me to tamales that I've never seen before.

Of all my birthday presents, my most favorite and most thankful is, by far, my seventh birthday present. Although it wasn't anything tangible, it is one that has been an eye-opening adventure, one that will last a lifetime, and one that has allowed me to appreciate the many cultures and traditions from the blond Barbie hair to the tamales. At the end of the day, we're all the same people under the layers of hair and skin of dead cells: we all tie our shoe laces, we all eat, and we all have hair. We may tie the laces differently, prepare food differently, and groom our hair differently; but isn't this the beauty of life? To know that we have an exceptional natural capability to perform the same task but with a touch of our own unique twist; to know we're special in this world of nothing but similarities; to know that there is spice to life but that we all run on the blood of the color red.

Writing Feedback / Dead Poets Society movie vs. my classroom [4]

Prompt: Dead Poets Society has many characters who each have very different personalities. After sitting through a year of Mr. Keating's classes, most of the characters grew in some way. Compare a character's development after taking Keating's class to your own development after weeks of (teacher)'s class.

Inspiration fuels the potential of others by inciting a change in attitude to enable self-reflection that, in turn, alters conflicts to opportunities for growth. English Prof. John Keating in Dead Poets Society directed by Peter Weir and AP English Literature and Composition Teacher (teacher) of XXXXXX High School both exemplify inspiration to students by motivating students to seek for knowledge through experience and self-discovery for a greater byproduct of development in maturity, knowledge, and self-appreciation.

The Dead Poets Society begins the movie with Todd Anderson, a new student to Welton Academy. Within ten minutes into the film, the audience soon realizes that Todd is not the main character but rather a foil character. Todd's qualities contrast to that of Neil's, the main character, and successfully highlights the various facets of Neil's personality. While Neil is outgoing and popular, Todd is introverted and timid. While Neil is interested in acting and fine arts, Todd's focus is to fulfill his parent's academic expectations. Todd's transformation throughout the movie is one of the prominences of the movie. Todd initially lacked the confidence to even casually recite a poem to his friends at Dead Poem Society meetings, yet Prof. Keating seems to have an astounding affect on Todd as he improvise a poem of a madman on the wall. On a greater picture, Prof. Keating had reached out to Todd and inspired him by boosting his confidence. In appreciation and respect, at the end of the film, Todd is not afraid to stand up to his belief in that Mr. Keating was an inspirational teacher and demonstrates this by standing on his desk, signifying that he will forever abide Mr. Keating's three principles: (1) to seize the day to make one's life extraordinary, (2) to approach all situations through analysis from different perspectives, and (3) to be free-thinkers through freedom of expression and non-conformity, speaking up for one's belief.

(Teacher)'s teaching method is very similar to that of Prof. Keating. Both value the meaning and appreciation for literature and morals of life over the studying materials. Through my personal experience in (teacher)'s class, I was a Todd Anderson. Although I wasn't completely introverted and overly shy in the beginning of the year, I highly esteemed grades to meet my parent's academic expectations. I rarely completed assignments with a purpose of appreciating the material but rather to maintain my GPA just as Todd was extremely hesitant when Mr. Keating ordered the rip the introduction out of the textbook. I also am usually a foil character of a class, too reserved to play a major role but bold enough to speak out arbitrarily. Throughout Mr. (teacher)'s class, I experienced a transformation from busywork of poems to enjoyment of literary research through strange analytical approach to literature. We constructed a game in which we had to blindly draw a line across the page without colliding with obstacles to stimulate a real life example of Heart of Darkness. The activity portrayed the novel's idea that imperialistic ideas are blind and apathetic to the cultures and traditions of the victimized country, and the obstacles representing emotional contemplations and physical difficulties that drag Marlow behind demonstrates that to attempt to incorporate a new culture or practice is impossible to accomplish without the acknowledge of and the respect for the differences in culture. We also played a game in which each person spoke a sentence at a time, then a word at a time, and then all at the same time. This stimulation exemplified the revolution to being at Billy's state of "unstuck in time" in Slaughterhouse-Five. Activities such as these has made me analyze novels from a different perspective and, in the process, has made learning enjoyable.

Todd and I were both inspired by teachers to appreciate literature and philosophies of life on a greater level. Perhaps, this is true education: to enable diversity, free thinking, and epiphanies filled with "ah-ha!"s.