Undergraduate / Cats and me----Stanford supplement: note to your roomate [3]

[i]Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate--and us---know you better.[/i]

Hey roomie,
Since you are going to be one important part of my life from now on, you probably want to know some things about me.
Besides the love of tuna, I have lots of things in common with cats.
You see cats are always staring at the birds outside, chasing butterflies or checking out streets cats. And I have the same curiosity, the same perspective to see this world as my playground, and the same desire to enjoy every moment of my life. In a free afternoon, I may find the spot where the sunshine is warmest to sit and read a novel. I may also just go sit on the bench outside and watch leaves fall. And no matter how busy I am, I always find time to take a nap in the most comfortable place. Don't take it as I am a lazy. Cats slow down to enjoy life only because they can be fast when necessary.

Cats love to climb high, so do I. I like to climb high hills, academically and physically, without worrying about falling. After I fall, like failing a really hard mid-term, I will take some time to cry. But I always remember to keep those down moments only moments. So when you see me crawling in bed crying, don't worry, I'll be fine. Don't you see the cats always succeed in the end?

Have you ever stepped on a cat's tail? After some time, they forget all the unpleasantness and come back to rub your feet. We probably will have some unpleasant things happening in our friendship. When that does, we all have the right to be angry, but I hope we will get over it and forgive each other.

Cheers,
Your roommate

Undergraduate / The Graham Cracker (a topic of your own): Commonapp essay [7]

This is my common application main essay, please read it and tell me what you think, it could be overall impression or grammar or just weird expressions. As you may sense from the writing, English is not my first language. So please, help me out!

"When was the last time that you ate a nitrogen-dipped Graham cracker?"

I don't know about you, but I remember when I first heard this question, I was stunned and soon excited. I closed my jaw (from shocking) and watched Dr. "Mad Scientist" Sverdrup dipped a cracker in a box of liquid nitrogen. I saw the boiling nitrogen flew out of the box, spilled on the carpet; the nitrogen clouds wreathed around his hand. I wanted to scream to stop him. But then I thought about it: yeah, I do want to taste the nitrogen-dipped Graham cracker.

After about 7 seconds of watching the nitrogen boiling on the carpet, wondering when it's going to burn a hole on it, I saw Dr. Sverdrup proudly took the cracker out of the box, held it up high like a proud grandmother who just made the best chocolate cookies in the world.

"We need a volunteer to ..."

"I'll try it." I jumped up from my seat to grab this cracker. I put it in my mouse, trying to ignore all the staring eyes in the audience and enjoy the cracker. It is cold, ice-cold; eh, it sticks to my tongue; wow, it's really crunchy.

"So why the cracker is so crunchy?" I asked.

During my six-week summer science program in New Mexico, every day was like the scene above. Before I went to this camp, I was THE nerdy student. After reading The new world of Mr. Tompkins when I was only eight, for thousands of times, I imagined myself riding a bicycle at the speed of light. I wondered if my house, the soccer field, even the Wal-Mart building would become as thin as sticks. I wondered would I be able to see my granddaughter who looked even older than me after I took a train traveling to the moon and back. I imagined myself wandering in the forest of quantum, using the red proton, white neutron and green electron to make any nucleus I want, just like choosing any ingredient to put in the Thanksgiving turkey.

In the Summer Science Program, I fortunately found 35 students who are just as nerdy(or quirky?) as me, who each has at least four calculus shirts and proudly wears them every day, who watch Star Wars like religion, who watch most sci-fi just to find the unscientific bugs, who would spend 72 hours debug a "EOF in multi-line statement" error in python programming, who would stay up till three to solve one astronomy problem and then go to bed satisfied, who hug every huge rock simply because it's fascinating, who talk about multivariable calculus at breakfast table although they are barely awake, who loves science even more than chocolate...

Why am I interested in science? Sometimes when people ask me this question, I do want to stand tall and proud like Miss America and tell them the reason is that I want to use my knowledge to save the world, so they will "wow" me a lot. However, all I really want to do is to open the orbit determination research paper I wrote last summer, and pointed out how could my amazing asteroid (4055 Magellan) has a semi-major axis about 0.98 AU, which is so close to earth orbit, but manages not to hit earth in the next 30 million years. And I will turn around ask him or her, "How could this be not interesting?" I want to say I devote myself in science not because it's great for the human beings or world peace, but because I enjoy the pure pleasure it brings to me, the fascinating black holes that are still unveiled, the possibility of time traveling, and the beauty of science that there is never a definite answer in any question.

"Why the cracker is so crunchy? You find it out." Dr. Sverdrup said.

Yes, I will. Because I know I will always keep this initiative that I want to taste the nitrogen-dipped cracker and find out why it's crunchy to keep me going, in science, in college and in life.