Undergraduate / "the weekend camping with grandfather" - William&Mary optional essay help. [4]

This is the prompt: Beyond your impressive academic credentials and extracurricular accomplishments, what else makes you unique and colorful?

We know that nobody fits neatly into 500 words or less, but you can provide us with some suggestion of the type of person you are. Anything goes! Inspire us, impress us or just make us laugh. Think of this optional opportunity as show and tell by proxy and with an attitude.

>my problem is that I already basically wrote this for my commonapp essay. so I figured id tell a story for this one. feel free to rip it apart! ill read for you too=]

From what I remember about the car ride up, I was quite miserable. I was to spend the weekend camping with grandfather. Originally, my brother was supposed to be in my seat, but a surprise Boy Scout trip halted his plans. It did not, however, halt my grandfather's plans; he just decided that I would go with him. Though I had no desire to camp out in the freezing November weather, I reluctantly agreed, and bought a few more sweaters. It's not that I didn't enjoy the outdoors; I just liked to look at it more than I liked to sleep in it.

We arrived at the camp- grounds around six, somewhere on the Delaware River My grandfather pulled his Buick up into a sea of pickup trucks and SUVs. We rented a spot right up against the creek, in a spot where the trees cleared just enough to squeeze our tent into. I had never pitched a tent in my life, and my grandfather was not much of a seasoned camper himself, as I found out. I then set out to explore the grounds. It really was a nice place, but in the middle of a freezing November, there wasn't much going on. Finding nothing but an empty game room, I returned to our tent to settle in for the night. I had never gotten so little sleep in my life. The sounds of the wildlife blurred together and became a constant throbbing noise; with all of the animals competing to be heard in the dark. Sleep dangled above my head, taunting me, and every time I was about to reach it; some new animal would add his sound to the night song.

I crawled out of the tent in the morning, and was hit by a blinding light. The Delaware water gap sprawled out before me, and the sun glittered brilliantly off the ripples. It was probably the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, but the sourness of the night before still clung to my taste-buds. My grandfather, however, was already up and ready to go. He had planned out our activities for the entire day, beginning with a "leisurely stroll" through the woods. After a day of fishing and meeting the other campers, we ended up rowing a canoe across the creek. I tried as hard as I could to look like I was having a good time, but with each pull of the oar, my façade broke down. My grandfather looked at me discerningly. He knew what I was feeling, and he stopped rowing. He said he knew that I didn't want to be there and that he was sorry. I felt absolutely terrible.

Something clicked in me. I don't want to call it an "epiphany", but I really can't call it anything else. Hearing my grandfather's apologetic words, I knew that I had to make a change. He shouldn't have been apologizing; I should be having a great time with my grandfather. The rest of the weekend went much differently. Part of it may have had something to do with the friends I made and the laptop they shared with me; but a lot of it was just me. I didn't want to ruin the trip for my grandfather, and after a few lakeside games, I started to have fun. As I went to sleep on the last night, the animals sang once again, only, I sang along with them.