Undergraduate / "One Lunch to Rule them All" My Yale Supplemental [3]

Please be super critical! I really need you advice and this is urgent because it's due today. I realize the ending's a little weak, but I kind of ran out of space.

One Lunch to Rule Them All

Mouth-watering honey-suckling pig; tender Kobe beef; decadent Baked Alaska; these are some of my favorite things. Having been blessed and cursed with a picky palette from birth, food has always held great significance in my life. I've always felt kind of bad about wasting my money on video games that I never played or card collections I never did anything with, but I've never felt bad about splurging on myself with fine dining. Over time my selective taste buds led me to explore the world of cooking rather than just tasting. However, just like any other chef, I love to cook because I love to eat. Whenever I get home from boarding school I always hurry to the kitchen to try new recipes that I've thought up or found after scouring the Internet. Even when travelling abroad, my fondest memories have been of delicious delicacies or cozy home cooked meals made with overflowing love by my host mom Irene. I've learned from continually watching my own mother cook for literally hundreds of people the importance of good food in bringing people together and leaving everyone happy and satisfied.

In middle school however, I never realized this very basic fact about food. During seventh grade lunchtime, unspoken contests to see which of us could get the best trade for their respective lunches always took place. Right from the start there would be a mad dash to trade chips for cookies for anything with a high abundance of sugar and practically nonexistent nutritional value. At the end of lunch, my friends and I would look at each other with grins on our faces, exchanging glances at our imaginary bloodied knees and calloused hands.

And then one day, I brought the one lunch to rule them all. Somewhere along the lines, my chef's instinct kicked in and I realized I didn't have to sit back and eat inedible public middle school lunches or Go-GurtŽ every day. Due to the close proximity of my house (right up the hill from my middle school), it was relatively easy for me to bring all of the necessary ingredients for a gourmet burger to school. I had it all planned out. As soon as the bell rang I rushed to Ms. Berg's room, grabbed my ingredients (along with my trusty George Foreman Grill), and raced back to Ms. Rojas's room to create my masterpiece. All of my friends gathered in awe of my grill and drooled over my burger. In a fit of insanity (although I'd like to think of it as me being nice), I gave each of my friends a bite of my burger. Funnily enough, seeing my friends with their faces scrunched up in happiness and their mouths half-cooing, half-shouting how delicious the lunch I had made was gave me much more satisfaction than the eating of my burger ever did.

Today, nothing pleases me more than having people come to enjoy good food and good company. But hey, isn't that what food's for?

Undergraduate / "Pan Asian Community Service" - UPenn Huntsman on an international problem [3]

Please be super critical.

Everyone's felt it before, that unbearably lonely feeling that they are all alone; they've all experienced that sensation that they were invisible and the rest of the world was oblivious to their presence.

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Undergraduate / Back to the Roots, my Common App short answer [2]

I need some last minute feedback on my short answer. Thank you!

Prompt: write about an extracurricular activity that has influenced you.

Having been raised in an urban city like Portland, Oregon, I had never really known much about farming. I had always thought of agriculture as an industry dominated by an oligopoly of extremely wealthy individuals who controlled 80% of the market and exploited their immigrant laborers and the rest of the poor 20%.

When I started volunteering on the CSA farms of Riverland and Natural Roots, however, I learned that my image of farming was completely off. With a team of other dedicated Deerfield Academy volunteers, I got my hands dirty and experienced first-hand how to crack, seed, plant, and harvest garlic. From my work on these small, friendly farms, I've learned of the importance of taking care of my environment and of building community. I'm grateful for the experience but most of all, for the chance to learn from a diverse group of socially conscious people different from myself.

Undergraduate / "The Nature of Travel" my Common App Essay [2]

Hey everyone. This is my Common App Essay. PLEASE BE SUPER CRITICAL!!! I'm applying to very tough colleges like Yale, Princeton, Early Action Georgetown and Tufts so please give me some feedback. I really need it. Thanks so much!

Here's the essay:

Prompt: Topic of Your Choice

"Que delicioso! This is delicious!" exclaimed German through a half-open mouthful of Popeye's Spicy Chicken. Our little habit of speaking in both English and Spanish to improve our respective proficiencies in our non-native tongues hadn't left us since we left Spain nearly 11 hours before. As we ate inside that stuffy, greasy Dallas Airport Popeye's, we both secretly thought of the adventure that lay ahead of us in my hometown of Portland, Oregon and the adventures we had already experienced in Torrelaguna, Spain where German lived. The air nearly vibrated with the excitement that emanated from our anxious, twitching legs. I use the word anxious rather than eager (which is a pet peeve of mine when people mix the two words up) because of the fact that we were travelling alone. No annoying parents or watchful escorts; it was just the two of us on our own escapade exploring what would normally be a boring big-city airport. A little nervousness is to be expected in two thirteen year-olds under these circumstances.

Looking back on that experience, I realize from the moment we stepped into that Popeye's, we had already made Rookie Mistake #1: Stuffing our yearning bellies before going to the gate first. Although I learned from the very best, my father, who was an expert traveler/company man, I still made an egregious mistake that would end up in German and me missing our flight.

See the thing is, I was a veteran traveler like my father, or so I thought. Despite my meager 13 years of life, I had already travelled internationally by myself three times and had the childish orgeueil to match. This arrogance led me to believe myself infallible, even though my stomach started to bubble uncomfortably as we walked towards our gate. I thought it just the after-effects of the chicken and paid it no attention.

As soon as we got there though, I knew something was wrong. First off, there were only a few people scattered around here and there instead of the regular hustle and bustle expected of a gate half an hour before boarding. Secondly, there weren't any gate attendants. German shot me a nervous glance and said "Hey tio, no hay nadie aqui. There's nobody here. " I reassured him and told him that we would just wait around until the gate agents came and started boarding people.

After half an hour of waiting, I finally realized that it was time to take action. I walked over to the nearest flight attendant to find her in the midst of a heated argument with a middle aged Chinese woman who was screaming her head off about how terrible Delta (my flight company) was and even blamed the poor flight attendant for her current predicament. After she left, I approached the flight attendant and shyly inquired without a hint of my previous bravado "Excuse me Ma'am, but do you know when Flight XXX was supposed to depart?" She confirmed the secret fear that was growing in the pit of my stomach and German, who was quietly standing next to me, started to cry.

The reason German broke down was not only because he was a foreigner in a different land, but also because he had to spend the night in Dallas the year before as well. This was hands down the worst mistake I had ever made up to that point. Being the wise guy that I was as a kid, I always found a way to reduce my culpability in a mistake by assigning partial blame to someone else. "You didn't tell me to do that," "He started it," and "She said to do it," were kind of go to phrases of mine. With this mistake though, I had no easy out. It was completely my fault. My friend German was a visitor to this country and my parents, his parents, and he himself expected me to guide him home safely. I had failed this one simple duty tremendously.

As soon as I saw German start crying though, my head became clear and I stopped thinking at a million miles an hour. I knew then and there that in order to reassure my frightened friend, I at least had to appear confident and in charge. I steadied my breathing and calmly turned to the flight attendant and asked her to put us on the next flight out to Portland. When she replied that the next flight was in the morning, I asked her to put us in a hotel for the night and arrange some sort of transportation. In the end, we ended up catching the flight perfectly on time the next morning.

This experience helped me realize that I, like any other human being, am not invincible. No matter how experienced or knowledgeable I think I am, I can't underestimate any challenge I face. I also learned that people are much more likely to help you when you remain calm, polite, and nice when you deal with them. My mom later told me that normally if you miss a flight due to your own actions, you have to pay for the hotel. I think the flight attendant appreciated my gentle words and I'm guessing German's tears also moved her to pity us two thirteen year olds. Despite everything that happened and the absolute tongue-lashing I got from my parents, I'm grateful for this mistake. I learned a lot and I think it was really a bonding experience with German. Besides, as my parents say, these kinds of experiences just part of the nature of travel.