Undergraduate / Overcoming Domestic Violence 150 word supplement [2]

Prompt: Alumna and writer Anna Quindlen says that she "majored in unafraid" at Barnard. Tell us about a time when you majored in unafraid.

A child raised as I was, in a house filled with tension, grows intuitive enough to know not to press or push. As a survival instinct born of a child's self-preservation and the long-standing habit of judging the mood of others, the practice takes hold as easily and familiarly as setting pen to palm. At fourteen, I watched my mother exercise a silence familiar to both of us as her body turned bruised beneath my father's fist once again.

I finally pushed through, fighting against the instinct to flinch and pull back from the sound rising from my throat. My lungs rose in peace and my throat sung with relief, in breathless swells, crestfallen chokes. One word, shaped into coherency by my lips, told of David's performance on the harp before King Saul, of Samson's defeat at Delilah's treachery, of a broken Hallelujah whispered. The chord rung with tears in C Major, unafraid:

"Stop."

Scholarship / Significant Experience: Domestic Violence, 450 Words [3]

I miss my father to this day. Like a dull ache that flares from time to time at odd moments, it catches me unaware at my most vulnerable or inconvenient. There is still a part of me that misses him and his memory, though it is only for the wistful dream of what I had never had from him. The memories are semblances of what I had caught fleeting glimpses of in him, but they recur just often enough to leave me perpetually hungry for more of his better than his worse. There is a small part of me that lights up with hope whenever I see the figure of a stout, middle-aged Bangladeshi man on the street, but as the translucent outline of my father fades away, shame pervades it. Because although I miss my father with every bone in my body, I could never say it aloud. I could never admit that I miss the man who bruised my mother's face, fractured my left wrist, and bloodied my sister's gums in numerous different violent rages. Though it was I who had called 911 that night the police took him away, I still feel a dull, poignant ache whenever I think of him; I miss the man who used to make omelets every Saturday morning and push me on the swings, the man who used to affectionately call me his "little egg." I know I will always be hungry for more of his better than his worse, reveling in the wistful dreams of what I had never had from him. My mother simply believes that I'm cold and unfeeling for calling the police that night; "He was still your father," she will say in an accusatory tone every so often. The first time the words spilled out of her mouth, I stood still and quietly felt the inner doubt and uncertainty of just what to do or say creeping up my spine in a familiarly horrible way. The guilt of reporting my father plagued perilously me at first, but I soon come to realize that I should not be made to feel guilty for my actions. My mother sees me as the "bad guy," but I do not mind; I aspire to make her proud of me. I am determined to succeed in life and know that the decision I made that night has helped to define my motivations and my values. Each day, I feel the emotional and financial repercussions of reporting my father, but I do not regret finally reporting the ten long years of escalating domestic violence I experienced; I do not regret protecting my mother from my father. The consequences bear heavy on my shoulders, but through the trials and tribulations I've faced in life, I've come to believe that I have a predominating sense of moral and ethical righteousness. I am determined to take a proactive approach to improve my life as well as the lives of others, even if my efforts go unappreciated.

Undergraduate / "born in Bangladesh" - Cornell Supplement Essay for ILR [2]

The limit is 550 and I have 680 words ugh.. what can I cut out? And any thoughts? How convincing is it?
Prompt: Describe your intellectual interests, their evolution, and what makes them exciting to you. In your essay please address how the ILR curriculum will help you fulfill these interests and your long-term goals.

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Being born in Bangladesh, labor reform and improvement is not just a economic and academic interest to me, but also a personal passion. Walking through the streets of Dhaka at nine years old, I saw beggars with their eyes sunken in, freshly laid off from their jobs at sweatshop factories. As I grew older, the images followed and haunted me, but were eventually replaced with the determination to remedy their cause. My interest in Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations poignantly reached fruition once I learned about the sweatshop factories the beggars sitting on the side of the street had been laid off from.

After taking an AP Microeconomics class, labor issues have affected me on a personal level because I have cultivated a passionate belief that labor organization is crucial to the development of society on a global level. Countless Americans criticize massive corporations that create cheap products using overseas sweatshops. While well-intentioned, these Americans don't realize that sweatshops are crucial to developing impoverished foreign communities. Though wages given out to factory workers are low, sweatshops create coveted jobs for people who would have no other way to sustain themselves. Corporations have been given bad names for creating sweatshops in third-world countries, but those who criticize them don't see the potential these corporations have to do good deeds using their economic power.

I am a firsthand witness to the reality of what people have to face in poor communities, as well as what normal middle-class American workers face everyday. My mother, who works at a minimum wage job as a cashier, is victim to the flaws of her worker's union contract. She and my father, who has lived a tiring existence as a taxi driver on the streets of New York City, have helped put the issue of social labor into perspective for me. Because of them and my personal experiences, I am committed to finding a solution for social injustice through labor law legislation. I wholeheartedly believe that our economy and society is led on labor trends, and that improving society is dependent on research and reform in labor economics.

My goals are intrinsically attuned to the study of labor and I am ready to do whatever it takes in order to see social equality in the world, which I believe relies on issues of labor reform. Whether it means heading a Worker's Union Organization, working in the Employment Division of a large-scale corporation, or becoming a public service lawyer, I aim to find justice for all underprivileged and disadvantaged people in the world. I hope to intern in all the aforementioned fields and know that the School of Industrial and Labor Relations can uniquely allow me to do so.

Though my past has provided me with experiences that have shaped who I am and what I plan to fight for, it is my future that will give me the weapons with which to fight the battles. ILR's curriculum is fundamentally attuned to my interests and will enable me to study everything associated with my goals, from sociology to history, law, business, economics and psychology. As the only school of its kind, I believe ILR is a stepping stone to facilitating global change through economic and social labor justice. I aim to eventually eliminate panhandlers from the streets of Dhaka and make sure that my mother's co-workers to do not have to struggle to keep their working hours from being cut. Through my academic interests and personal experiences, I've realized that social progress can only be accomplished through labor reform and am thereby determined to work towards research advancement in labor unionization.

Writing Feedback / Pers.Essay: A Time When I Encountered Something Greater Than Myself--Poverty in India [5]

My teacher gave me a B+ on this essay, but I would like to rewrite it for an A since he is giving me the option to get a better grade. How should I rewrite this?

He had made the following comments on the essay:
2nd Paragraph- "Be more vivid--an actual image of a real child"
5th Paragraph- "Let us hear and see him"
The End- "B+ You have the intensity, you find yourself in a crummy place. But neither the poverty nor the family get to be present"

How can I redo this essay for an A? Any specific suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Here you go:

The Conflict of Guilt and Hatred

In life there are moments holding more substance than others. To predict them is hard, to measure them upon occurrence is impossible. They are gifts, or curses, or disasters, whose worth only time will tell. Within their invisible walls are worlds disconnected from the ordinary patterns of a person's life; intimate domains where every move is significant and holy. To taste such a moment is to understand the power of transformation. They are moments of change.

For as long as I live, I know I will remember each moment in that room; the quietness that seemed to be too loud, the tense waiting on that plastic chair, the reheated old fast food, the sickeningly gentle heat of the cup against my skin. I can still smell the the scent of spice in the air and still see the brown hand fisted in the knee of my black sweats as I listened to the casual and derelict speech of my aunties and uncles. I remember false security and loosening suspicion clouding my better judgment as I turned my head and caught sight of poverty-stricken children outside the window; the smell of the dank basement. All these memories enter me like light does the eye or music a lonely soul. Unknowingly, their presence has become a weight inside me as it has turned into a moment of change. So I will never forget and never forgive those who let me live my life as a child, foolishly blind to the world I lived in.

I envy the days inside which I lived life so naively, inexperienced and easily enthralled by the slightest changes in status quo. I always wanted to grow older-always wanted to see more, experience more, learn more-know more. I regret my silly misconceptions on what life was, for once you learn about the calamity life is capable of holding, I've learned that you can never go back. I resent those that had let me foolishly live on in a state of ignorance, for when you finally grow and gain that sense of self-awareness, you realize how much of an idiot you had truly been. They thought they were hiding it for my own good, but it only bred an immense amount of self-hatred within me.

Since that day and after experiencing that particular moment of change, which I have often likened to a nightmare, I have felt like a jack-o-lantern on a daily basis. The unappealing guts of my abdomen had been yanked out with a fork and dumped in a heap while a grinning smile has been left plastered on my face. I try my best to not be a stereotypical, angst-ridden teenager who can't confront her own inner demons, but sometimes it is simply challenging. On some level, I feel more mature but at the same time, much too small for what my mind seems to contain. I feel guilt, hatred, and disgust for all the privileged people around me. Living and going to school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan just makes me wonder what I've ever done to deserve this privilege. The questions have been eating away at me from the inside and resentment has turned into appreciation, which has only added to the amount of guilt buried within my fingertips. In another world, another lifetime, I could've just been another beggar on the streets of Calcutta, a single step away from being sold into child prostitution.

I remember wanting to punch my uncle in the face as he casually ignored the begging children. He looked at them with disdain and a demeanor that reeked of a deep superiority complex; they annoyed him, knocking on the windows of his Mercedes Benz and dirtying up his new cleaning. To this day, disgust wells up inside me when I think of him, my favorite uncle, and even greater than disgust, guilt-because I've cultured a hatred inside me for my own living family. I know that they cannot help being disgustingly privileged in a country where more than half the population is starving, but it still does not keep me from hating them for it. On my trip, I learned about metaphors, euphemisms, and hatred.

Though I would like to believe that my experience has enriched me, it certainly has not. I live every single day now in fear, pointedly trying to feign ignorance in order to hopefully avoid any appearances of other significant moments in life. I've learned to understand what 'ignorance is bliss' truly means, and I've learned to doubt it.

Though they didn't let me walk the streets alone in Calcutta, in my fine South Asian clothes and even more extravagant finery, they didn't understand that somehow the quietness in the car was even more stifling than the sight of the poor outside the window. It choked me from the inside out; and as my spoiled and self-absorbed aunt petted my hair as she asked me what was wrong, her perfume pulled the last straw and strangled me, her long fingernails turned into my own personal guillotine.

It was not the realization and sight of poverty that stifled me, it was hatred. I felt the sting of lashes on my back as the waves of kept on crashing against me, one after another. The feelings of conflict and anger felt too large for my nine-year-old self and I had no idea what do with such a massive, immense amount of resentment and anger. The reasoning behind the hatred, too, was much larger than myself. There was nothing I could do to solve the problem of poverty, or the destructive and angry feelings it inspired within me, for I knew it was self-inflicted; my own personal moral issues. My sister had adopted the nonchalant, casual, and blasé nature of my aunts and uncles in India, seemingly unaffected by the sight of the dirty unwashed children and men sleeping by the side of the street. I had not the gall to bring up my problems with my parents or other family members because I had been so accustomed to loving and embracing them wholeheartedly, I could not fathom to imagine the disappointment I'd inspire within them once I let them know how revolting they were to me.

So I sat quietly by, and let them continue their lives in a charade of bliss and happiness.

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Suggestions please? I want to get this up to an A.