Scholarship / Goal in life/medicine scholarship essay [2]

I have no idea what is the specified length for the essay but I feel like this is too long. Im using this essay for about 6-7 scholarships i'm applying to with similar prompts: 1) Reflect your goal in life and how this scholarship will help you 2) Reflect your goal in medicine and how this scholarship will help you (very similar prompts). I think I should cut 200 words but I'm not sure where to start. Be harsh since this is my first draft. Thank you,

My stomach gave an awful sound but I disregarded the petty pain. I felt my left cheek, still sore. "That woman will never hit me again." I swore aloud yet still hesitated by the decision of running away from home. I looked around; it was 11 PM and the road was still wet from the earlier storm. I dragged my feet across the muddy winding path that led to nowhere.

My stomach growled again, only this time the pain was worse. I reached for the nearest pole and rested my arm on the frigid metal. "Oh no, not now," I closed my eyes and tried not to picture my intestine being gored by a knife. I looked around and hoped to see a random late night pedestrian. But it was too late; my body already hit the ground and my right arm quivered from the agony. All of my senses shut down except for the excruciating pain.

A bright light approached me. If there were a dramatic sound effect in the background, I would have thought that I was dying and the light was coming for me as the final gift from God. I felt someone touch my shoulder but could not distinguish what the voice was saying.

"Hey...kid... are you... ok?"
I could barely make out a silhouette of a man behind my eyelashes.

"I'm calling an ambulance." The man reached into his pocket but I stopped him before he could dial the number.
"Don't. I don't... have money for the...hospital..." I tried to ignore the pain but it was impossible.
"Don't worry kid, I'm a doctor," he said.
Oh a doctor huh, lucky me. My consciousness finally gave up. The ambulance raced through the silent night and took me to the most dreadful place, the hospital.

I never like doctor. They make children cry yet ironically, they suppose to save lives. All the rich boys in my neighborhood always boast that they want to become physicians but can never explain to me the reason when I ask except for the fact that their parents told them to. Yes, noble jobs only for rich people. An ordinary peasant like me should focus on how to survive without being killed by the society first. The last thing I wanted was to become a doctor.

"You finally wake up eh, gee, you've been asleep for 24 hours." The man chuckled.
24 hours? I will never sleep again. There he was, the man wearing a white lab coach that I thought only existed on TV. I think the last time I have seen a real flesh doctor is eleven years ago in a birth center.

"Sorry for the trouble, I promise to pay back the medicine money," I murmured, embarrassed to look at the man who just saved my life.

"Don't worry about it kid, what you're gonna do to pay back? Polishing shoes?" He chuckled again only this time he put a stethoscope against my stomached. The metal head was so cold that it made me flinch. Polishing shoes? That was not the first job on my list but that did not sound so bad.

"I tried to call your foster parents but they did not come, I can take you home when I'm sure you are ok, don't worry, just a minor infection," he said.

"Minor infection huh?" And here I thought it was an epic near death experience that I could tell my grandchildren about. And I don't want to go back; after all I risked my life to run away from it in the first place. He did take me back despite of my pleading, crying, and begging for mercy and I did pay dearly for trying to runaway.

I came back to the clinic the next day however, not to learn the meaning of life or to know the definition of Acroosteolysis, I just don't have anything else better to do. I don't think it was legal for children to wander around in the hospital but in Vietnam, they could really careless about some random kid. The guy, who I later learn his name was Dr.N, did allow me to talk to non-contagious patients. N. forced me to take all the vaccination I missed my entire life before I could become a full time "staff" here. I cried like a baby but I actually enjoy the presence of other people for the first time so I didn't mind the needles too much. I got to know the patients and their amazing stories, some of them even sound like they were blatantly plagiarized from an Oscar movie, but I knew that these stories were very real from their physical scars. I guess not all doctors were bad. For the first time in my life, the thought of wanting to be one actually entered my mind.

A year later, Dr. N got a job offer in America. He gave me his son stethoscope and said he want to meet me some day, as a colleague. I laughed at the ridiculous idea.

Two years later, some woman I've never seen in my life accepted me as her biological son so I was sponsored to America. One step closer to become a doctor, but still a crazy idea I thought. Chemistry is still impossible despite shadowing a professional for a year trying to save lives. However, I wanted to get the feeling N. got when he cured an old man when all the other doctors gave up, the feeling he got when he saved my life. Of course, I am still poor as dirt and paying for college is still impossible. Any aid from any benevolent organization would help me one step closer to my life long quest.

Undergraduate / "Chopsticks and Vietnamese Opera" - College of William and Mary [11]

Ok sorry, my last post wasn't my last. This is like a last minute thing when i decided to apply for William and Mary since I might get in, so what the heck. The prompt was to write about anything I want so the admission may have a sense of who i am. I rushed the essay under an hour since the deadline is coming up, there will be a lot of grammar error so if you don't mind, please tear this essay apart.

Oh, and I need to cut ~90 words

Sweat gushed down from both sides of my cheeks. Like a rattle snake preying upon a delicious mouse that runs across the field, I stared intensely at the final piece of chicken on the plate two feet away. My arm relaxed and was ready to finish the war I had started. My opponent shot me the deadly gaze, yet still did not avert his concentration from our mutual target. On three, my hand swept across the table and aimed for the prize. Within a fraction of a second, the chopsticks tucked between my fingers snatched the chicken wing from my opponent. I won. Just like my father always said, I can become a ninja if I can increase the accuracy of my chopsticks skill.

While other children my age around the world learning how to talk or sucking on their milk bottles, here I was, learning how to eat rice with two sticks. "Don't be like those Western kids who only use forks and knives," "barbaric utensils" as my father used to describe. Whenever my instinct told me to use my left hand to control the two awkward pieces of wood, it always followed up with a smack across my head (there goes some of my brain cells). My father would think of every possible food that existed for me to practice on: rice, noodles, or even chicken soup. Thank God water did not enter his mind.

Chopsticks are not always used for elegant purposes. Vietnamese nannies have two ways to torture children. One, locking those poor kids in a room to listen to Cải Lương played at maximum volume- the worst kind of music that sounded like a broken violin and shrieked like a drowning fish. Two, chasing the kids with a "personalized" chopstick that is almost as long as a coconut tree. Usually I tried to be brave and prefer the latter while preparing myself with some hard cover books in my pants. However, the result always ended with the nanny racing to the kitchen and pull out a bigger "sword", only this time, the courageous soldier was down to his diaper.

Sometimes I wish knowing how to use chopsticks could take me to college or at least refill my penny jar, otherwise, all the pain I suffered through all these years would be for nothing. Watching my "Americanized" nephew struggle to hold the sticks together was like watching my nanny play football, too horrific to watch yet too hysterical to look away. I assured him that with enough practice, he can start a business catching flies with those tools.

My lifelong lesson: give an Asian kid a fork is like declare him a death sentence (his father would make sure it happens). Oh, and never try to understand the lame instructions on one of those Chinese takeout chopstick covers.

Poetry / "Don't describe me in 5 stanzas"- Virginia TECH (poem) [2]

My last college essay (hopefully). Yes, another poem (i adapted from another poem i wrote earlier)
Virginia Tech- Tell 5 unique things/traits about yourself.
The reason i wrote a poem not because want to be "weird" but i cannot think of a way to write 5 things about myself without being too generic or boring.

Any comments/ criticism/grammar are welcome :)

Don't tell me that I am weak
Because harsh words can never hurt me
For the "perseverance" that I will seek
I'll find the answer to its mystery
You can knock me down, but I'll stand back up
Like a seed deep-rooted in my blood
Cease me from breathing, but don't stop my determination.

Don't tell me that I am a coward
Thousands years of Vietnamese's valor
Our spirit had drowned the enemies' vanity
Our "bravery" exemplified the Vietnam War
To be free from the chain of eternity
To fuse of fire inside our hearts
The bloodshed stole our lives but not our pride.

Don't tell me that I am lazy
Give me the AP books, so I won't procrastinate
My services are free, but are not hasty
"Hard efforts" can never be contaminated
Request me one and I'll provide you two
Feel free to ask if you have no clue
Here, I am, my reason, my virtue.

Don't tell me that I am cynical
I don't question the ephemeral love
Mom said, "Let's try it once more"
Dad frowned, "But our effort is futile"
Their wedding rings shattered like glass
My heart broke but I prefer its pieces
Don't give me glue; it can never last

Don't tell me that I am a dreamer
That someday I'll perform impossible "surgeries"
Dad says I should become a manager
Mom thinks I'll save the country's economy
But I am who I am and do what I love
And all the patients that I'll serve
Because with VT, "I'll exceed above life's expectation."

Undergraduate / "The church worship leader" - Elaborate one of your activities (150 words) [4]

Sorry, for constantly posting new essays. But this is a short one.
Briefly elaborate one of the extracurricular activity (150 words). Please check for grammar, thank you. Word count: 150

My fingers stroke against the guitar strings and let the note rang.

"Are you done now?" Jason chuckled when I finally finish tuning all the instruments in the room.

"Yea," I sighed, "New rule. From now on, player tune their own instrument."

I ran over to the other side of the building and made copies of the songs that we are planning to lead the church on Sunday. If the time that I wasted to prepare for the practice was not long enough, I have to constantly yell for the attention of the band members. They could never focus in the songs that we suppose to practice but rather enjoy playing Lady Gaga songs.

Being the church worship leader is challenging since I am younger than most of the other members. However, I felt the joy after we successfully practice all the songs and prepared for Sunday.

Undergraduate / Surprising literature work that challenged me- UVA [2]

Hi, again, I also want to try a different approach to this "essay". I emailed the school and ask if my essay has to be literal as the prompt: "What work of art, science, literature surprised or challenged you and why?" They said I can answer however I think is appropriate. So what do you think? Is it too hard to understand or too abstract/unclear. Thank you. Check for grammar also if you can :)

Here is Father's journal
Don't make me flip back the pages
Those perfect white pages that soaked in tears, in blood
The years that Father endured
The night shift hours, the sweat, providing me education
Protecting me from drugs and violence
Don't make me turn back the pages
And feel the guilt,
The burdens I embed on his shoulders.

Turn to the first page
Do you see a man with such brightness in his eyes?
My father's
Yes, the same eyes that were hardened by time
By its depravity and misery
Its white pages; marred by those ugly stains
The notebook thickened
When he's disappointed
In me, in life
"Stop adding to the pages," I plead
I want to see the perfect white lines
Not the ugly scribbles
"It's not my fault!"
Or that's what he always assured me.
I swear, I tried to remove the blemishes,
But it's like a needle that engraved the imperfection into the skin, the heart.
The decrepit wrinkles on his forehead
"I didn't do that either!"
Or that's what he always assured me.

Please don't ask me about the journal
I refuse to flip back the pages.
Evidence of the mess I made
The same marks
That transformed his gentle eyes into callouses
That created the wrinkles on his forehead, on the pages.

His last entry before I stepped on the plan
Leaving my motherland, leaving him
"Start your own adventure, write a new book".
He smiled; the wrinkles on his forehead moved
No, you are wrong Father.
I will continue your book,
And start its new chapters.

Undergraduate / The reason I hate my elementary teacher? - Virginia Tech question [7]

Ok, the title is very misleading, but this is my response to Virginia Tech question: Which current teacher or previous teacher that influenced you and why? First draft and i didn't spend a lot of time on it so i expect to have a lot of grammatical errors. Please read over and tell me what you think, did i answer the prompt?

I hate the way her right hand moved so gracefully across the blackboard and her fingers tucked the silky strands of hair behind her ear. The sound of chalk tap in rhythm against the smooth surface tempted me to put my head down and forget about the reality, but I hated it when her soft voice would call me back from boredom and forced my interest into algebra. Has math always been this pleasant?

I hated it when I accidentally called my teacher "Mom". Her gentle hands always assured me that everything is alright when my own mother wasn't there to wipe away my tears. The way her almond eyes looked at me- explaining why the eye is the window of the soul, telling me that life is much more than one plus one- there was nothing I could despise more. I never understood the reason she expected someone like me to become perfect. No. Not me. I can never become perfect.

I forgot about the time when she shared her food when Dad was too busy to pack my lunch, and her expression when I praised how awfully good it was. I hate the reason why I was still alive, the reason I did not use drugs, the reason that I am sitting here and thinking about my future.

But no, the person that expected me to become a great doctor, expected me to know right from wrong, expected me to do one plus one, an elementary math teacher had made me realized that hatred does not exist.

Undergraduate / "ephemeral" - Favorite word essay -UVA 250 words [8]

I took a different approach to the essay, do you think it will work? Is it too unclear about what is my favorite word? I tried my best too reveal as much info as possible without changing the writing style.

And I absolutely hate the ending. Please help me improve it. Thank you :)

Dear Mother,
Do not tell me that you will love me always, because such word does not exist. For eternity, I have been waiting for the everlasting to come, but I see nothing, just empty promises. Your ephemeral passion is like a fire in a vacant room, like a vortex that sucked away my every hope that one day you will change. You told me that everything in this world will fade away, just like my ephemeral dreams have long gone. I was foolish not to grasp on the reality that you, will not change.

It took me years to realize that what I have always believe in will disappear, just like your love. You left me to chase after your delusion, to chase after the land of opportunity. You took away everything, but left one lie, the fabrication that haunted my dream like a ghost: "One day you will understand".

Did you know my best friend Jimmy passed away? Yes, I was the last one to see him, the last one to watch his suffering, the last one to witness him shatter our ephemeral friendship.

Do not be angry at me for my pessimistic perspective about the world. Because for ten years that you abandon Father and I to go to America, I have learned that sorrow is also momentary. We were homeless. We were hungry and thirsty. However, the darkness had fled away. We have won over our fate.

I cannot wait for the day to tell you that "ephemeral" is not always negative. It taught me how to be a person in the world that full of irony.

Your son.