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"I'm on plane to Africa, WHAT!!" - FIRST UNDERGRAD ESSAY [6]
Hey guys this is my undergrad essay. I'm about to be a senior and wanted to get some some constructive criticism on my essay to see if its good enough for ivy leagues and if you can get a feel of my personality through this essay. All help is apprecaited thanks!!!
"I'm on plane to Africa, WHAT!!"
I'm in Nigeria. How did I get here? Well my mom decided I needed to learn my culture and heritage. So she moved me and herself from NY to Lagos. This as far as I was concerned sucked. Why would you move me from amazing New York to Lagos city? That is all I was thinking. But now that I am here, it's not that bad. I realized as soon as I entered the car that was taking us from the airport. Drake was playing; my favorite rap artist. This was by far flabbergasting. That is when I knew that this experience might not be as vapid as I thought. And I was right.
Well the first thing my mom realized is that Lagos is just like New York City. For me that was an ebullient moment. I loved it. I could watch E! Animal Planet, MTV; all my favorite channels were available. The city is culturally diffused, so there was no culture to learn. I felt at home immediately, but the nostalgia did come gradually.
First off there are rats everywhere in Nigeria. It's not like NY where there are only rats if your place is unkempt. The first time I saw a rat was not expected at all. It was on top of the kitchen stove. I totally got debilitated; I was stupefied. Though I love to watch Animal Planet, the animals are safely in the screen. So there is aesthetic sense you can have for animals without the prodigious fear. The rat is dead now, but after that I knew this is Nigeria.
Another thing is that there is an exorbitant amount of people living in adversity. I see them everywhere, especially on the street when I'm in my car. It really touched a place in my heart that I didn't know I had. That is why now I can't waste food, because I see people without it everyday. But there is another thing that said "Joy, you're in Nigeria". There is a light problem. I did not even know what a generator was until I came to Nigeria. There is something called Con Edison in NY that provides light 24-7. Here it is called NEPA, and it is a miracle when there is light. The generator is turned on for light, most of the time.
The list can go on, probably eternally. The problem that is very fractious in Nigeria for me is that the laws are not instilled. Everything is that now if for example if I was speeding on the highway and cops would pull me over, I can just bribe them and I am exonerated. That is just an inscrutable fact for me. That lawlessness just abetted me to realize that the law career I want to pursue is immutable.
If I consider everything Africa was not that bad. The people are veracious. This made me stronger than I was before I travelled. The fact that I had to stay in boarding school made my loquacious side become conspicuous. The school curriculum is different and IB program both made me have to work harder and be more pedantic than ever before. The disorganization made me to me to become more solicitous about laws, and allowed to my leadership skills to be put into use. The abject poverty allowed me to find my benevolent sense. My amorphous personality went through a metamorphosis into a strong, loquacious, benevolent, industrious leader. Oh, and I also learned how to pronounce my last name, because supposedly I wasn't pronouncing it properly before. So maybe my mom was right. I might have not fully learned my culture, but I learned about myself.