Undergraduate / An Exercise In Trust: Wrestling + Physics - Stanford Intellectual Vitality Essay [3]

Hey everyone, this is my essay for one of Stanford's supplements. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

Stanford students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality. Tell us about an idea or an experience you have had that you find intellectually engaging.

The Half-Nelson produces the maximum torque when I position my body directly perpendicular to my opponent. The Russian Roll can flatten an opponent with minimal exertion courtesy of the law of conservation of momentum. While my body aches, my mind thrives during wrestling matches.

I've realized I take so much of the knowledge I learn for granted. Take my physics textbook - could everything contained within it be fundamentally flawed? It troubles me to see the incongruous relationship between quantum mechanics and general relativity, and I consider the unrivaled trust I place in my relationship with my learnings. What if all those laws, theorems, and principles that I greedily swallow are built upon a foundation of sand?

But a familiar, stale rubber scent greets me, and as I practice curiously named techniques, I discover an unwritten textbook chapter. I venture to wrestling practice with a weary body but an eager mind, for each wrestling match is an elegant experiment - an exercise in trust. Beneath the remote abstractions and rudimentary scenarios presented in the classroom, I meet physics in an intimate manner as body meets body in rude embrace. No doubt the concepts applicable to a wrestling match are trivially simple compared to the theoretical research surrounding the Large Hadron Collider. And of course to a cursory viewer, especially my parents, the scene of a wrestling match is less than pleasant. However, with each carefully calculated move, I test my relationship with my knowledge, and I couldn't be more satisfied.

Undergraduate / "Crossing Bridges" - UC Prompt 1/Common App Essay. Too Stereotypical? [5]

Hey everyone. This was my UC Essay, and I'm thinking about adapting it to the Common App. Specifically, I was wondering if its too vague or generic, because I feel like a lot of Asian-American kids write about how their parents immigrated and the hardships they faced. But I'd greatly appreciate any sort of feedback (feel free to tear my essay apart :P). Thanks in advance!

The prompt is:
Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

A stranger lives in my household. He keeps a tidy patch of peppered grey stubble on his chin. I hear he comes from China. His English is not great, but his manners at the dinner table are impeccable. I've come to call him "Dad."

I've never really related to my father. Growing up in the typical Asian-American immigrant family, I spoke a mixture of Chinese and English because neither of us fully understood each other's respective language. I harbored an irrational resentment - a burning frustration for him throughout my childhood. We never talked much, and when we did, it was always business. I jealously looked towards the archetypal American dad - one who plays catch with his son, commandeers the barbecue on weekends, and expertly coaches a football team from the couch.

Whenever I slacked off, he would relate yet another didactic anecdote from his tome of childhood hardships. He was the son of a farmer. He walked miles to school through sleet and snow. He collected dung for lunch money. I had heard them all, and whatever profound meaning each one carried was lost in a sea of broken English.

But he shaped my perspective on life. It wasn't his hardships. It wasn't his success. It was the stunning divide between the circumstances that he had gone through. A destitute farm boy living in China. A computer engineer living a comfortable lifestyle in America. Taken separately, these are unremarkable lifestyles. But the divide between them is as astounding as the bridge that connects them. And my dad walked across that bridge - a path that I took a long time to appreciate. Still, it is an experience I can barely fathom.

Above all our differences, I embrace this one quality of him - his drive to succeed and transcend the circumstances handed to him. I fill out a couple job applications online and curse the economy when I don't get called back for an interview. He tossed away his Chemistry Ph.D. and learned C++ programming to get a single job. Through him, I have realized that I have to create the opportunities around me, not wait for them. I strive to capture a glimpse of his journey, to understand him by discovering his life's work. I want to experience his progression, not from destitution to comfort, but from one plane of life to the next.

I am the son of a farmer. I walk miles to school through sleet and snow. I collect dung for lunch money. I don't relate with my dad, but I can put on his shoes. I can follow his footsteps, and when I cross that bridge, I will finally understand.