Undergraduate / My jail - common app essay (crit for crit) [24]

My essay has gone down from 1017 words to 620 words. I just want to know what you guys think. Of course, I will crit back :)

When my teachers assigned complicated midterm projects, I started, quite literally, cavorting around the classroom. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not the type to win over a teacher's affection by expressing an implausible amount of geniality. Nope, I genuinely loved projects.

So when my English teacher announced a Huckleberry Finn project, my reaction was a mixture of whooping and fist slamming. By the end of that day, I met with my group and decided upon a Huck Finn parody. This was Tuesday. Our presentation? Friday. By Wednesday, however, the situation had done a back flip. During school, my group members had secretly assembled together and voted unanimously on the idea of a musical. So much for democracy, right? Inspired by Machiavelli, I decided upon a cunning plan.

At the group meeting on Thursday, I turned to Mia and said, "But I dance like a caterpillar. You know that! You saw me at the winter formal". She reluctantly agreed. Encouraged, I turned to Rick and said, "I sing like a troll. You were there at Ritmo Latino". At this point, Anika, Jazz, and Robert pulled Rick and Mia to their side and rejected all of my "excuses", as they called them. It was clear I had been defeated. My group mates were standing together, forming a wall defending their musical idea from the onslaught of my chicanery.

In order to prevent further acrimony, I reluctantly ran through the skit. Curiously, I managed to croak through the Pokemon theme song and move my legs to Elvis' Jailhouse Rock. With the act over, I was astonished at my equanimity. At the very least, I had assumed I would be paralyzed by anxiety halfway through my lines.

In fact, I felt so overjoyed that I explained exactly why I refused to do a musical. At the time, it had felt so right to confide that the reason for my cynical behavior was simply the fact that I was scared. I promised them that I would perform flawlessly tomorrow morning and left for home.

Unfortunately, my confidence came with an expiration date. Entering the house, I strolled upstairs to my room, sat on the desk, and slammed my forehead upon it. The embarrassment had arrived later than expected. With contempt and bitterness, I realized how ironically I had put myself in a jail through my own actions. In the crux of that trying situation, however, I found the key to restore my confidence and as a result, break me out the jail. I was not so shocked at my discovery of the key, but rather its simplicity.

Taking the script with me, I sprinted to the bathroom and locked the door. Determined I convinced myself that the bathroom would be my jail. The only way I could get out of this jail was to run through the skit flawlessly. Script in one hand, I recited my dialogue without a problem. When it came time to perform the Pokemon theme song, I maintained eye contact with my reflection on the mirror and sang the theme song out loud. The sight did not look so bad after all. When I came out the bathroom nearly two hours later, my Jailhouse Rock moves were comparable to Elvis' himself.

Although my performance was for a classroom of thirty-six, the knowledge of that performance had spread to every member of the junior class. In addition, my teacher congratulated me at the end of performance and told me that she had never seen anything like it. Rumor has it that college is difficult and beyond anyone's total control but I know that I have a bathroom, closet, or any other tightly closed space where I can lock myself and escape out emboldened to face whatever uneasy situation blocks my path.