Undergraduate / Barnard: Journaling, War, The Little Prince, and Why Barnard? [5]

If you had a full hour to meet with a government representative or community leader, what one issue or concern would you raise and why?

If given an hour to speak to a government representative, I would raise the issue of sex trafficking and how it needs to be stopped. I would encourage the government representative to support groups such as the Polaris Project in their efforts to abolish modern-day slavery, especially when it involves young children. Children are defenseless against prostituting themselves because they are too young to realize it is wrong. People who are forced into sexual slavery have developed an idea that no one will help them because efforts to stop sex trafficking have been not been aggressive enough, due to lack of funding and lack of awareness. Because sex trafficking is such a taboo topic, many government officials are hesitant to mention it as an issue against which they will fight. I would urge this government representative to fight sex trafficking and defend Innocence, which sexual trafficking destroys in those affected.

Please describe a daily routine or tradition of yours that may seem ordinary to others but holds special meaning for you. Why is this practice significant to you?

I have always valued the power of words. I have seen how words have the power of mending hearts and easing pain. They also have the power to destroy and corrupt. Words are fragile-so fragile that I take care in choosing the words I write as I fill page after page of my Moleskine notebook with those that express my innermost passions and my most genuine hopes and fears.

Not a day goes by when I do not journal. Writing is something very special to me, something essential to my life. When I write, I feel as if I enter a sort of breathing room: an open space in which anything is permissible and where all things are possible. Journaling is important to me because it helps me to be honest with myself. I am no longer self-conscious in my breathing room. As I look back on the journals I accumulated over the years, I see how my hopes and fears have evolved. Journaling allows me to see how I have evolved as a person, gradually, page by page.

How were you made aware of Barnard College? How do you feel Barnard College can help you achieve your personal and educational goals?
I first discovered Barnard College through my older sister. Often when she stayed late at school, I would go into her room and sift through her piles of college viewbooks. Barnard captured my attention after a brochure mentioned the "Nine Ways of Knowing," which appealed to me because I wanted to be flexible in my course selections, exploring a wide array of fields without being confined to a rigid "core" curriculum.

I have always been a free, unconventional thinker. I like to surround myself with people who are intellectually engaging, people who can simultaneously challenge and respect my opinions. I have been raised to be a strong, independent woman, one who always defends herself and her beliefs. While I like being independent, I also like the encouragement Barnard offers as a community. College will be a crucial time in my development, and I want to be influenced, supported, and surrounded by strong Barnard women who share my quest for intellectual understanding.

Undergraduate / NYU Short Answers - O. Henry, Comparative Lit, The Writes of a Poet, and Poem [3]

Thank you! I will comment back if you leave me a link :]

If you had the opportunity to spend one day in New York City with a famous New Yorker, who would it be and what would you do? (Your New Yorker can be anyone -past or present, fictional or nonfictional - who is commonly associated with New York City; they do not necessarily have to have been born and raised in New York.)

If given the opportunity to spend a day in New York City with O. Henry, I would spend the day conversing with him in Central Park about his inspiration for his ironic short stories, specifically The Gift of the Magi, because of its theme of unconditional love. I would show him a portfolio of my writing and ask him for advice on how to make my writing poignant but thoughtful, and ask him about his early days as a writer. I would ask about what specifically inspires him to keep writing.

Please tell us what led you to select your anticipated academic program and/or NYU school/college, and what interests you most about your intended discipline.

Ever since I could read, I have been intrigued by how language helps people to communicate with each other. As a young girl, I taught myself Braille and Sign Language, wanting to explore language beyond a verbal level. During high school, I began reading in Latin. I plan to major in Comparative Literature because I enjoy seeing how one language influences another, reminding me that all feelings and issues are universal.

In the year 2050, a movie is being made of your life. Please tell us the name of your movie and briefly summarize the story line.

In the year 2050, my autobiographical movie would be entitled The Writes of a Poet. The story line would trace my progression as a writer-from the day I wrote my first haiku in first grade to the day my seventh novel is published at age 50. It will document all feelings I have towards writing including the joy of inspiration and the frustration of writer's block. The ending will emphasize that despite the difficulties, I have truly found a home in my words.

Write a haiku, limerick, or short (eight lines or less) poem that best represents you.

She is like a lion, fierce in every way.
She is the hunter of all things beautiful.
She seizes them and molds them into
Her own creations.
Her lion-rage is born of passion.
She is persistent in her movement-
Her imagination is unconfined.

Undergraduate / Home - there is always my heart - and it is everywhere. Common App Essay [7]

I think it would go under this one:
Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.

(Or should it be significant experience, or the topic of your choice one? Help!)

"Home"

Home is where my heart is.

It was a hot July afternoon. My sister and I were walking through the busy streets of New York City, making our way to the Museum of Modern Art. Though my sister had been to every museum in New York City at least twice, I had never been inside the MoMA. "You'll love it!" she told me as we turned onto Museum Mile. "There's an entire Salvador Dali exhibit up. Do you know him? I think you'd like him," she said as we entered the lobby of the MoMA. The museum was already crowded, though it was ten minutes before opening. After paying for my ticket, I made my way to the gallery of American painters, turned each corner, glanced at each painting, and read each blurb.

My sister and I separated and, after a series of rights and lefts, I found her, staring at a single painting pushed up against a corner. It was entitled Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth. At first I was puzzled as to why my sister was so entranced by this simplistic painting. There was nothing alluring in the orange-gray field; not even the sky had the ability to sustain life, but then I noticed a girl in a pink dress-a single girl sitting in the field with her back to us. In the not-so-far distance a house stood, and the girl appeared to be crawling towards the house, a single arm outstretched, struggling. "Look at how she struggles for home. Look at how she's longing to reach it, and how close she is, yet how far away it still is," my sister said. "It's like every person's perpetual longing to reach home."

I had not given much thought to the concept of home until later that summer. I was on the computer researching the background of American painters, and I stumbled upon Christina's World on an art history website. "What is home?" I had asked myself while watching the girl's struggle once again. "Where is Christina's home? Why is she struggling for it?" I continued to wonder. I thought about how I could have asked everyone in the world to define "home" but few people would be able to give me a concrete answer. I thought about how I would define home if asked, but my thoughts would not coalesce. Home was an abstraction to me, born of the many books and movies of my childhood. I could only imagine a two-story house with an acre-wide backyard, breakfast made by my mother every morning, and nights spent watching movies with my father-things which were not of my own home, but were illusions of a home I wish I had.

I grew up listening to the adage, "Home is where the heart is." Only now, as a seventeen-year-old, do I understand what it means. In everything I do, whether it is writing a poem, choreographing a dance, or giving a friend advice, I try to put all of my heart into it. I try to give no less than my best effort. Investing a piece of my heart into every person I talk to and into every piece of art I create helps me feel at home. I feel as if my home is everywhere because I leave a part of myself with every person I talk to, every place I go, and everything I do. I never feel homeless because every day gives me an opportunity to create, and every day offers me a chance to communicate. Home is no longer an illusion of stereotypical family scenes but a more genuine reality to me, one built on the foundation of creation and bolstered by passion.

Some days I feel as vulnerable and reluctant as Christina must have felt as she crawled to her house, fighting the wind that bludgeoned her hair into her face. Sometimes I feel lost without a single, stable home that I can always go to for protection. I counter this vulnerable feeling by just remembering what my home is, the culmination of relationships and efforts that each hold a part of my heart. Like Christina, I have the wonderful ability to see home from a unique angle-from the foundation to its rooftop-its conception to its creation. Because I have struggled to understand the true meaning of "home" for so long, I appreciate what it is for me now and how limitless its possibilities are.

I can never be homeless-everywhere is home.

Link to the picture: arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/americanscene/images/Andre wWyeth-Christinas-World-1948.jpg

Undergraduate / For as long as I can remember, I have been a writer; Pratt Institute [6]

(2) Describe when and how you became interested in art, design, writing, architecture, or the particular major to which you are applying. Describe how this interested has manifested itself in your daily life.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a writer. Growing up, I watched my sister furiously write her thoughts and feelings into her journals for hours. As soon as I learned how to form sentences, I began to experiment with different types of poetry, starting with the simple haiku. As a first grader, I was fascinated by how versatile a single form of poetry could be. During elementary school, I expanded my poetry to include limericks, diamantes, and cinquains, and began to write short stories. At first my stories were simple: short, one page stories with a single character in search of something lost. However, the more I wrote stories, the more imaginative I became, and the more I wanted to keep writing. Writing opened the door to a different reality, a type of breathing room where I found that all things were possible and infinite. There were no boundaries; there was nothing limiting me besides myself.

Throughout middle school and high school, I kept journals. Each page I wrote helped me mature in some way. I was writing down my dreams, my aspirations, and my perceptions of life. Writing became a part of my daily routineïif I did not write for one day, I felt incomplete. During my freshman year of high school, I took a creative writing class in which I wrote some of my first sonnets and dialogue stories. My teacher encouraged us to be expressive and to allow ourselves to completely feel what we were writing. I poured my feelings out onto paper when given the chance and I furiously typed my stories on the computer when brainstorming. I had an endless amount of plot lines and character ideas, all waiting to manifest themselves into a story.

In December of my junior year, I auditioned for a program called Arts High, with a concentration in poetry. My instructor was Charles H. Johnson, a Geraldine R. Dodge poet from Hillsborough, New Jersey. He began our audition saying that all people have their own respective poetry, and that it did not necessarily have to include words. Whatever people invest themselves intoïthat is their poetry. He spoke about how poetry transcends any words sought to define it, and how it keeps everyone in the world alive. It is their muse, their passion, their reason for living. As Charles spoke, I thought of how universal poetry was, and how alive I feel when I write. I realized how beautiful poetry is because of its abstractness and ubiquity among people. Poetry is hard to explain and harder to identify, but it rests within every single person in the world in some form. Charles's words intermingled with the thoughts in my head, and it was as if I was baptized at that very moment by inspiration forever. After I realized how abundant poetry was, I knew from that day onward that I would never give up on writing, and never stop drawing inspiration from the beauty in the world.

Charles finished his introduction by saying that we all signed up for this audition because we choose to live our lives through poetry. He said he could feel the passion driving our words, though our voices were too shaky to convey it themselves. He told us that regardless of the audition results, we were never to give up on poetry because it never stops giving, and never stops using us to manifest itself. That December morning, I realized how truly blessed I was to be given the gift of poetry.

Writing has helped me mature, and there is not a day I do not write, whether it be in my journal or on my word processor. I find myself in a constant state of inspiration every dayïthere simply is not enough time to write down all that I would like to, but I see and feel poetry all around meïin the way a runner sprints down my street, in how my sister plays the piano downstairs, in the way the rain hits my rooftop at night. Knowing that the world has an infinite amount of beauty helps me find inspiration for my writing, and when I write, I know that I am truly living.