Undergraduate / UChicago's Find x: The Missing Ingredient [2]

Thanks for dropping by here! This is my find x essay. Please, please, pleeease give me any critique you have. Short, long, terse, thorough. I'll reciprocate accordingly. NOTE: This is NOT complete. It's halfway done and I just want to know if the idea of finding a missing ingredient as "x" is clichéd. Is the "x" introduced too late?

BZZT! The blaring noise of my apartment intercom startled me out of my seat. As I walked over to answer it, I wondered if I was supposed to be expecting someone.

"Hello?" I asked.
"Package for you." a raspy and tired voice spoke back. I invited the deliveryman up. Could this be the book I had ordered a few weeks ago? In a minute or two, the deliveryman arrived at my doorstep, handed me a heavy box, large as a microwave, and walked off with a grunt. "Don't I need to sign something?" I yelled across the hallway. Another grunt. Guess not.

I hurriedly took the box to my room, where my dog seemed equally excited to see what was in store. I cut away the taped edges, opened the flaps and, to my shock, saw a steaming 3-course meal-plates, food intact, and all. I then did what any sane, hungry person would do: rush to the dining table and devour it immediately. This dish was the most delicious meal I had eaten in my life. Flavor exploded in my mouth. The heat of spices was doused by cool creaminess, and then ignited again. The myriad of colors on the plate-green, yellow, white, maroon-painted a picture in my eye. I hungered for more. Thankfully, in the box was included a detailed recipe scrawled on a scrap of paper. Yet, there were two thick blotches of ink where the final ingredient was to be. No matter; it wouldn't make a big difference. As a food junkie and amateur cook hoping to join a certain culinary club in college, I seized the opportunity to add this unparalleled dish to my repertoire.

Shallots, vine tomatoes, olive oil: sauté. Portobello mushrooms, blitz and cook until dried out. After several minutes of chopping, frying, reducing, cooking, and caramelizing, the dish was dones. I took a spoonful to my mouth, excited.

"Blech!" It was disgusting. This dish was the most foul meal I had eaten in my life. What had I done wrong? I cleaned the pots and pans hastily and tried again. I recooked the food as if I were undertaking a chemistry research project. The results infinitely dependent on my precision. Again, the meal was completely wrong. It was that missing ingredient. The blotched words. I had to know what they were.

---I was thinking of making my quest creative, going to Tibet and India and France, but never being able to find the missing ingredient. In the end, I realize that the secret ingredient can only be found after a lifetime of experimentation and improvement. The pursuit of the missing ingredient is what makes the dish so delicious. Once it's been found, there will be nothing interesting in the meal anymore.

That part will be coming soon. Thoughts?

Undergraduate / Why UChicago?-Endless Opportunity [3]

Critiques please! I'll try my best to reciprocate with the same thoroughness you provide me!

My eyes open slowly and calmly. As my senses come to life in the morning, the first thing I smell is opportunity. The second is leftover pizza from last night's House meeting. Shadows of sharp spires stretch across my room in Broadview Hall. When I freshen up and head to the Searle Chemistry Lab to continue my research on proton exchange membranes, I meet my professor of complex materials on the way. Animatedly, he tells me about all of the opportunities I'd have in developing fuel cell technology at Argonne Labs, he highly recommends that I attend the weekly chemistry colloquium next Monday as a part of Explorations in Chemistry. At UChicago, though, I have the opportunity to delve deep in any field, such as the philosophical connection between Alexis de Tocqueville and Karl Marx (which I discussed with my friend, Sean, on page 25 of The Life of the Mind!). Since I intend to play a part in pioneering an era of accessible and affordable alternative energy, I'm seek an education in economics and business as well as the natural sciences. UChicago's Careers in Business program has sent me next-door to the Windy City for internships and as far away as Beijing for a first-hand experience with industrialization. When I've gained sufficient understanding of business, I can audit graduate courses on-campus at the renowned Booth School.

Evidently, UChicago has been providing me with everything I'd need to satiate my academic appetite. Still, it pervades my life in every other way. I've become subconsciously accustomed to walking around the seal in the Reynolds Club. On Wednesdays, I wake up excited and ready to get my hands on a delicious $1 milkshake. I walk around campus everyday with eyes and ears peeled for anything that would make an interesting article for my Chicago Maroon column. Some of my nights are spent with a throng of housemates, others in the Broadview music room, where I can get lost in solitude save for the music that accompany me. The countless doors that UChicago opens for me have led me to the Culinary Club and Off-Off Campus. The day-to-day life, full of opportunity and new experiences, is exactly what I had hoped for. At the University of Chicago, it's become a reality.