Speeches / What don't you know - a speech to God [25]

What don't you know? (500 words)

"Hey. Can you hear me, up there in the sky? I don't know if you're really out there, but here's to hoping. Because I like to think that you are; I like to think you can hear me. But I don't know if my voice travels such great distances, past the clouds and into your world, that place called Heaven. Should I be yelling, screaming at the top of my lungs? I'd guess a whole lot of people are talking to you, right at this exact moment, and it must be hard to hear each voice, as we all shout our own prayers, trying to be the loudest. Are you listening to me, really listening to each carefully chosen word? Maybe not. I'm a low priority compared to all those people who are broken and dying and relying on you for life, aren't I? Yeah, compared to them, I'm alright. You've given me a good life, haven't you?

I met a kid last summer. Jonathan. I don't know if you keep track of all of us down here on Earth, if you know our names and our favorite colors and who we love. Do you know Jonathan? Do you know about my first day as a counselor, the first time I saw him come bounding off the bus? I was tired; he, with his sunny smile and endless energy, was not. He brought me a vine one day and told me that he made it himself. I can see it now, across the room. Can you? It's the one in the yellow pot, the one dangling, stretching, trying to reach that clean white carpet. Vines grow for an awful long time. You already know that, I suppose. You invented the vines and you made them grow forever, longer than other plants that fade away. You invented the vines and you invented me and you invented Jonathan.

He's a great kid, the best ever.

I don't know if you know that. And if you do, I don't know why it is like it is. I don't know why I go to sleep in a warm bed each and every night, knowing that someone loves me and knowing that I'll have enough food for tomorrow and the day after, while Jonathan may not even have a pillow. I don't know if you chose this, decided that I would have these loving parents and this great life and he'd be born into poverty, or if it's all the luck of the draw. I look out my window and see a green lawn and a swing set. Jonathan sees the slums. He sees violence. He sees things that no child should have to see. Tell me why. Tell me so I can know.

And as I wonder why it is this way, I see that sunny smile. I don't know how he does it. Do you? Do you know the secret to his happiness?

I hope you heard me. I'll yell louder next time."

Undergraduate / page 217 - man on the plane [8]

Page 217 of your 300 page autobiography (one page)

under the seat in front of me, but it didn't quite fit. The man across the aisle coughed into his hand and I glanced over at him and our eyes met for a fleeting, awkward moment. He had a stain down the front of his green polo in the shape of a hammerhead and his jeans were a size too small. That was all I noticed before I glanced away, embarrassed that he had looked me in the eye, catching me in an undeniable act.

I wondered what substance had caused the stain and guessed that it was Diet Coke. I wondered what he had noticed about me in that millisecond of acknowledgement, if he had noticed anything at all. I wondered how long the seat beside me would stay empty and prayed that each person walking down the aisle wouldn't sit there, not because I disliked people, but because I liked people too much. I only wanted to close my eyes and sleep. I wasn't interested in conversation.

The raindrops hit the window in a steady pattern. Someone sat down and I noticed, but refused to acknowledge him or his brown shoes and khaki cuffs visible only in the very corner of my eye. The rain had erupted from the morning's light drizzle to this possible flood outside the window. I didn't like planes much and I liked them less in the rain. I thought about rain and floods and hammerhead sharks and soon, I was fast asleep. I had always been good at sleeping in planes.

"Happy holidays," he said when I woke.

I stared out the window. "Happy holidays. Too bad about the rain."

"I like it. It's rained for almost every big event in my life, you know that? I used to hate it. I'd be standing outside at my high school graduation, reluctantly wearing the cap and gown, and the rain would just be pouring down on all of us. And I'd absolutely hate it. But then it rained the day I graduated from college, the day I graduated from law school. It rained the day that I met my wife and it rained on the day we were married. I'm okay with rain now."

"What's the big event today?" On the day that I was born, I stopped the rain. My grandmother claims that the second I took my first breath of air, the very second, the sun came out from behind the clouds. I was a special baby. I could stop rain. I wanted to tell him that, but I didn't. It didn't seem so special anymore, now that the rain was falling harder outside the tiny window.

The stewardess had stopped the drink cart next to us and was pulling out the airplane peanuts, wrapped in the little blue bags that I could never open without difficulty. He took water and I told her that I didn't want a drink. I never drank on planes, not even water. We both took the peanuts and he opened his without a struggle of any sort. I fumbled with the bag in my hand, running my fingers over the top and not particularly trying to open it. I hardly knew him. I didn't even know his name. And yet, I knew I'd be embarrassed if he noticed that I was having trouble doing something as simple as tearing open a bag of airplane peanuts. He seemed polite enough and it was almost inevitable that should he notice my effort, he would offer to help. It was silly, but I didn't want help with it. Not this time.

He shook a few peanuts onto his hand and put them in his mouth, tilting his head back as though he were swallowing pills. He was a loud chewer. I couldn't hear the baby crying in the seat in

I see myself writing my autobiography as kind of a continuous story and maybe something big will happen on 218 or 219, but 217 is an everyday event. I'm a little worried about that, but I didn't really want to write about an achievement or my job or whatever.

Undergraduate / nyu supplement - gatsby and summer [6]

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?

"Hey there, Jay Gatsby. Do you have a moment? Do you have a day? Because I want to spend that day with you and talk with you and maybe watch for the green light together. You've got so much hope, enough to fill your great big mansion and half of New York City, too. You make me curious, Jay Gatsby. I wonder about you. What do you say? Can we get lunch? Talk about what makes you tick? I want to see your smile - I've heard fantastic things about it. Yeah, I want your smile to choose me. You've got a wonderful imagination, Gatsby. Share it with me. Talk with me. Do you have a moment? Do you have a day?"

Please tell us how you spent your most recent summer vacation. (500 characters)

I've never been one for lazy summers. I'd like to stay at home and sleep until noon, but there's too much else to do. Take last summer. Sure, I wanted to sleep, but I wanted to do art more and so, that's what I did. I spent a month at the MICA Pre-College program, waking at the crack of dawn for classes. Tiring, but worth it. I met new people, got new perspectives, improved my skills. I filled up the last of my summer working as a counselor at Camp St. Vincent, providing kids with sandwiches, smiles and fun when they didn't have much else in their lives. I'll sleep some other time, but not in the summer.

ORRRRR

It must be the warm air, for it's easy to sleep away a summer, under cool sheets with the windows open and on towels as waves hit the shore. And I like sleep a lot, don't get me wrong; I like the droopy eyelids, the sun on my back. But I'd take the smell of oil paints and the flick of a brush on a canvas over that any day, a pencil in my hand instead of a pillow under my head. I have my whole life for sleep, yet I had only a summer for MICA Pre-College. I didn't get much rest, but I got experience, inspiration, enjoyment as I made art in the MICA studios. I'll sleep when I'm dead. There's painting to be done now.

Undergraduate / mica - artwork changing perception [2]

Is there some way in which you hope your artwork will change our perception of the world?

I wish that I could be someone else for a day, just to know how someone else sees the world. I want to know if my green is the same as someone else's green or if maybe someone else's green is what I've been calling yellow my entire life. We don't all see the same way, I'm sure of that. But I want to know the extent to which our visions differ. I have so many questions and I want answers. Why can I look at one piece of art and think it's brilliant, while another person looks at it and claims that the colors don't work? Is the sky the same blue to me and another person? Is my idea of "dark" the same as his view? What is the difference between what I see in the mirror and what she sees when she looks at me? I'll paint a self-portrait and think I got it just right, but someone will come by and tell me that I messed up my eyes. Maybe we're just seeing my eyes a different way.

Everyone wonders this to some extent and there's no real solution. I can't just hop into someone else's body for a day and figure out all of the answers. I wish I could, but I can't and neither can anyone else, so we'll all just keep wondering for the rest of everything. This kills me a little bit. I want to help those other people with the same questions. But I can't loan them my body, not even for a little bit.

And so instead, I make art. It's my way of helping, my attempt to explain. I don't know what anyone else is seeing, but I know what I'm seeing and that's what goes into my art. My self-portraits are how I see myself. My still-lives are how I see the relationships that objects have with each other. Even my abstract pieces show how I see colors, how I see textures, how I see the world. And when someone looks at my art, I want him or her to see this. I want to make people realize that we don't all see the same. You see one thing, she sees another thing and I see something that neither you nor she will ever see. Except in my art and when you and she see it in my art, I hope you see a slightly altered world.

Maybe my world is only a little bit different, maybe it's miles apart. Either way, I want to share it.

Undergraduate / "the union of academics and service through innovation" - That's why Emory [4]

Besides size, location, reputation and weather, why is Emory University a particularly good match for you? (250 words)

I like to think. I like to sit down with a problem and just think until I have an answer, or a bit of understanding. I like to learn. I like to hear different perspectives, new ideas. I like to analyze, question. And more than anything, I want an environment in which I will be encouraged to do all of this. I believe that Emory is the school that will best inspire this innovation in all aspects of my life.

The idea of receiving such support in the academic sphere excites me. I want to be a part of the discussion-based classes that Emory offers, able to bounce ideas off of the other students and learn from them, gain new insight. I want to develop relationships with my professors, relationships that will enable me to grow both as a student and as a person.

I am particularly thrilled by the offering of theory practice service learning courses. Giving back to my community has been a large part of my life and these courses will enable me to continue this passion. I'm eager to see how the sharing of ideas promoted in the Emory classrooms will carry over into service in the Atlanta community.

Emory's commitments to both the support of unique thinking in the classroom and the integration of community service within the curriculum draw me to the university. The combination of the two ideas, two of my main interests, truly makes Emory the perfect school for me.

I AM SO HORRIBLE AT THE "WHY _____" ESSAYS OMGGGG.

Undergraduate / fetching - my favorite word! [4]

What is your favorite word and why? (250 words)

Fetching, how do you manage to do this to me? How do you manage to work such beautiful magic? You drive me mad with your two syllables, each so perfect and each so very... fetching. Your charm is simply irresistible, your beauty unfathomable as you roll off of my lips. I love the way my teeth scrape my bottom lip ever so slightly with that initial sound. I love the way I always end with a smile as the final sound escapes from my mouth. I love the way you sound, I love the way you move on my lips. You have beautiful body language.

I'm going to fetch you one day and steal you away to a romantic getaway, just the two of us in a cottage by the beach. We'll lie in the sun, as children are splashing and dogs are fetching and you, you too are fetching. But you're not fetching sticks; you're just plain Fetching and I think you're fascinating. You sound better than almost anything, better than the waves hitting the shore or the crickets chirping their song in the most silent of moments. Tell me, Fetching, how do you do this? I want to know because I want to be fetching too, although I will never be as fetching as you are.

Can you feel the sun on your back? Can words feel that? Can you?
Tell me, Fetching. I want to know.

Undergraduate / best advice - what and why? [7]

What is the best piece of advice you've ever been given, and why? (500 words)

A lot of things make me a little bit happy. I like apples. I eat around an average of three per day. Being warm makes me happy, so by default, sunshine and quilts make me happy. New clothes make me happy and freshly laundered clothes make me almost as happy. I like presents tied up with ribbon and the dinners at my grandparents' house. Growing older makes me happy. Eventually it won't, but for now, it does. Vacations make me happy, and so does that feeling I get when I come home after being away and sleep in my bed for the first time in a while. Finding money makes me happy, even if it's only a lucky penny, and I think it would be fantastic to win the lottery someday.

In my lifetime, I have been denied none of this. My mother keeps a fresh supply of apples in our refrigerator. We have more blankets around the house than I would need in the middle of winter in Antarctica. I've traveled to many places and I always come home to my bed. Every year, I make lists of things I want for Christmas and every year, my family does their best to give me these things; they always do a pretty good job. Yet in my lifetime, I have not always been happy.

Some things made me unhappy. My nose. It was too long and too big and it ruined pictures. My eyes. I tried to cover them up with sunglasses for a while because they ruined pictures too. My stomach. I only wore one-piece bathing suits one summer. My inability to tan. The fact that a lot of my friends were self-proclaimed losers who liked Star Wars too much. The lack of the opposite gender in my life.

I tried to blame my unhappiness on these things. I told myself that if I had cooler friends and a flatter stomach, I'd be happy. If I had a tan and a cuter nose, I'd have a boyfriend and if I had a boyfriend, my life would be better. My mother shook her head and told me that I was wrong. She told me that I couldn't be happy unless I was first and foremost happy with myself. It took me a while of trying to find happiness in birthday presents and stomach crunches before I realized how right she was.

Since my realization, I've been trying to be happy with myself. I'm looking for my strengths, instead of my flaws. I'm focusing on the positive; I want to be more optimistic. I'm realizing that everyone looks prettier with a smile. It's working, I think. I'm looking in the mirror and seeing happiness instead of a big nose. I have a real kind of happiness now, the kind that doesn't flicker away at a moment's notice.

I wore a bikini last summer.
I love my friends.
I smile more now.