Undergraduate / UC APPLICATION "Saudi Arabia"; personal talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience [2]

I'm not so sure about this essay. Would love some feedback

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud, and how does it relate to the person you are?

A twelve hour plane ride awaited me as I crawled through the busy airport. "Here we go again" I muttered to myself, too silent for the ears of my family to catch. We were moving again, but oddly enough a surge of happiness and excitement motivated me to pay attention to the chaotic mayhem of my situation. Another social clean slate had been offered to me by fate, and I took it gladly this time. The previous year had been difficult, tearing much of my imagined world to pieces. Coming to grips with the fact that countless hours of my life had been wasted doing nothing useful sent me into a spiraling depression. It was the first year of my life that I truly knew that success required much more time and commitment than was previously thought. Homework could no longer be a tenth priority, or even a third priority. Still, when thoughts drifted to Saudi Arabia the only word that appeared was hot. It would take only a few weeks for Saudi Arabia to reveal that it had much more to offer.

Like it was predicted, a thermometer greeted me and my fellow travelers with a notification that we were stepping into a desert with one hundred and twenty degrees of heat melting anything besides the few plants and animals that managed to survive there. With little to no ways of making friends and meeting people, most of the next month would be held in a bitter suspense with few people to put me at ease except an equally nervous family and the great writings of Kurt Vonnegut. The initial culture shock blew my mind; I had never seen a country so devoted to their religion and so slow to give freedom. In Saudi Arabia, women can't drive, slavery was ended fifty years ago, and they even have a king that has total power with exception to the Quran and Islamic traditions. Frustration gripped me from the knowledge that I would have to broaden my views in order to see past many American stereotypes that can be cast on countries in the Middle East. With part of me fully aware that I had little right to be upset, a determination to understand other cultures slowly grew on me as a fantastic and honorable idea.

The morning before the first day of school brought on a terrible nausea. Pushing through the discomfort, I rushed out the door as the bus came by my house. The reasoning part of my brain had either stopped working or been completely overrun by my emotions. "What can I expect from an international school? What will the people be like?" For one of the first times in my life, I had no answers to any of my questions.

To my surprise, the student body continues to welcome me despite the vast differences in ethnicity and culture. They are genuinely interested in each other as human beings and it is easy for me to do the same. Many of these students from varying backgrounds have become very close friends and act as examples of all the positive aspects of diversity that I had never experienced before. Pushing me past my comfort zone every day, living in Saudi Arabia has helped me gain understanding and respect for different lifestyles. A desire has been placed deep within me to expand my relationships and welcome experiences that are unpredictable and new.

Undergraduate / UC Prompt one "Coping with Life" "Describing my future dreams and past experiences [3]

I really tried to do something different with this essay( especially at the beginning) and infuse the broad and specific aspects of my life. It might have been too much. I would love some feedback on whether this essay is even a good idea or whether I should just give up on being fresh, orginal, and straightforward and just write about a specific experience instead

Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

Perhaps it is only my viewpoint, but this question seems so foolish. It has just occurred to me that, all at once, high school graduates are practically thrown into the adult world with little to no preparation for what life is really like. So, to ask an eighteen year old what he plans to do with his life is like asking a baby bird how it is going to fly. Not only that, but most colleges also want to know what direction that baby bird will be flying in. Truly, I have spent my entire life dreaming of my future. Now that I am applying to college, I am currently preparing to adapt to a tremendous change in lifestyle that I admittedly might not like at first. I do know one thing, that through my college experience I will be searching for meaning, purpose, and passion for my studies that I often struggled to find in high school. I wanted to attempt to give this question an inspirational or clichĂŠ answer that resonated the American dream of success, but the idea itself made my internal organs enlarge and press against each other. I do believe in my success. However, I don't like the idea of not addressing the issues before diving into hope, optimism, and reflection.

Looking back on an extremely sheltered childhood, I cannot help but think that I have been drowned by love. Never did my parents go a day without making sure that my brothers and I had all that we needed to be successful in life. I may have been an especially difficult task due to a bad habit of shyness and a disposition towards sensitivity. Despite the faults that I still carry, there also lied a great deal of promise. At a very young age, I had a strong talent for writing that was eventually replaced by mathematics. In all state tests, I scored incredibly high compared to other students in my grade. At the time, I believed so much in my own capabilities that I would talk about attending MIT with my grandparents who have always encouraged me to pursue my visions of a better future.

Adolescence hit me like a rock on the back of the head. The way it flew and direction that it came from probably didn't make it any easier. A quick transition to a middle school of 2000 from a classical Christian elementary school with 100 students is probably as extreme a change as I could have imagined. Just like everywhere else, I made friends and coped, but I found that the Christian values and beliefs had been lost and mixed around during the struggle. For the next few years, I would attempt to recover the faith and security I had lost by attending and volunteering at a radical church that practiced and encouraged speaking in tongues, prophesying, and other Holy Spirit inspired movements. No matter how hard I fought, I learned that I could not recover my past.

Eighteen now, I find myself with a newly instilled desire to find something and learn about something new. To give a glimpse into my personality, I have spent way too much time looking for the perfect college and the perfect career. I have high standards, not because I deserve it, but only because I do not want to waste my time or the time of the university I am applying to. People, to me, are the most interesting subject that anyone could possibly study; psychology, sociology, anthropology, and neuroscience are a few things of the long list of majors that is still in the making. I love to write, especially if it is free from the scrutiny of others. If I know that other people will be analyzing my words, they tend to be much more conservative and straightforward.

If a word could be used to sum up my life, that word would be change. During my short life, I have learned the uselessness of anything that does not build real relationships or contribute to society, the futility of silence, and the ever present truth that life will never be easy and fulfilling all at the same time. Going to four different high schools has forced me to adapt so much that I think there has been too little time or energy spent actually thinking about the direction that my life is taking. To say the least, I am looking forward to finding a place where I can settle down and work hard without having to be worried about being shipped across the country. Despite the fact that my experiences may have been stressful, I would not trade them for anyone else's.