Undergraduate / Connecticut College / Firewood - Meaningful place, Supp / Why Conncoll? [8]

Hi everyone! Please take a look at my supplemental essays for Conncoll. I really appreciate comments about grammar and word choice. Thank you all a lot.

1. What, in particular, influences your desire to attend Connecticut College?

Every hour, there are sixty minutes but each of those minutes is unique. Time is irreversible. And since I disbelieve in the next life, "to experience as much as possible" has become my lifetime purpose.

Throughout my seventeen years of life, I have seen a lot, felt a lot, and loved a lot. From the immense fields with carefree buffaloes to the grassy hills with nonchalant hawks, everything is beautiful and that beauty has motivated me to go out into the world. I want to see more, to feel more and to love more. So I desire to attend Connecticut College!

I have once sat on the bank of a pond, immersing my feet in the water while passionately discussing with my friends about the world economics. And now, I dream of the endless converstions at Concoll's Coffee Grounds with tasty drinks and sweet melodies. I have once wandered all around a submerged field with my classmates a summer noon, catching frogs for our following day's biology lesson. And today, I imagine myself at the new State-of-the-art Science Center, eagerly exploring the usage of an eye-catching equipment.

Everything at Conncoll, from the helpful MOBROC to the life-changing internships, promises me new lessons which are completely different for all what I have learnt before. I cannot wait to join a class discussion, where the 9:1 student-faculty ratio would acquaint me with each of my classmates' stories. And I am eager to learn how surprising it is, dropping by the Sprout weekly and finding out the leaves on my plants has become greener and bigger.

I want to go to Connecticut College so that someday, when the last moment of my life comes, I can proudly tell it: I have lived all my life.

2. Tell us about your favorite place and why it holds special meaning to you. It can be close to home or on another continent, your kitchen or a mountaintop.

* Explanation:
+ Ban chung is a traditional Vietnamese rice cake which is made from glutinous rice, mug bean, pork and other ingredients.
+ Tet holiday is the Vietnamese New Year holiday (in lunar calendar).

When I am writing this essay, Tet is coming and the spring winds are starting to draw in my mind the incredible beauty of those square rice cakes. As an unchangeable truth, I love wrapping banh chungs and I love the boiling process, during the twelve hours of which I would be attached to my little garden corner.

Regularly putting firewood into the fire has every reason to be called a dull task. But to me, in that tiny space, my day is not simply engaged with a boring job. In the morning, I am never off-duty, having to maintain and start the fire over and over again, feeling smoke stinging my eyes and heat burning my vulnerable face. In the afternoon, the fire gets stronger and I would have a warm, enjoy my books while inattentionally hearing my mom reminding me not to let the cakes overdone. And at night, I find it interesting putting everything I can into the fire, expecting an unexpected reaction.

Inside my heart, that messy garden corner is not trees, flowers nor garden-stuff. It is also not fresh air or lovely faint winds. It is the unforgetable atmosphere of my every Tet holiday. It is something that cannot be mixed up with anything else. Something flows in every blood vessels of my body - the Vietnamese tradition!

Not only in the big cities, but also right in my place nowadays, when I ask, my friends are no longer able to tell me their special knowledge about how to make a banh chung. I am aware that it is a decided trend. But personally, I promise my "prospective children" that in the future, they would still have a garden corner to describe in their college essays.

Undergraduate / Mr. Granary; Common App / personal essay [3]

Please give me some feedback. Thank you a lot!

Mr. Granary Essay

He is dead! Months ago, people pulled him down, making way for a new residential area. At the same time, they demolished my little kingdom, my old pretty house, and they killed him. Mr. Granary! I wonder whether he remembered the images of a lonely four-year-old boy wandering around, waiting for his parents to come home. And I wonder whether he remembered why I call him my teacher.

I was born in a remote highland, where maize was the main crop and flood happened averagely twice a year. When I was four, as the first turning-point in my life, my family moved to the countryside. We rented an isolated out-of-use co-operative's granary to live. And that day was the day I met Mr. Granary.

Mr. Granary was always calm, thoughtful and solicitous. Above all, he understood me. When I wanted to build a castle, he gave me bricks and wood pieces. When the drains got clogged in a pouring rain, he gave me an ocean where I managed to catch paradise fishes escaping from nearby ponds. I tried to be a hunter, then he satisfied me with swarms of mice, locusts and dragonflies. And when I was counting every minute, looking forward to my mother's figure, he taught me patience and calmness.

Back in the day, the bricks Mr. Granary offered me might not be as fascinating as my friends' balls or marbles. The oceans he created might be tiny compared to touristy beaches. But better than anyone else, I know that they were uncomparably precious. People now ask me for my prescription of success in solid geometry. I say there is no difference between those complicated drawings and the wood pieces from which my little castles were erected. My friends wonder why I can always stay cool while waiting in a turn-based exam. I say waiting has so far been nothing to me. For three years, I have been using only one black pen which has now turned white and chipped. No one knows that all mediocre objects could possibly become a soulful hero in every adventure I once created. My friends eagerly wait for each version of my flash computer games. And they do not know how acquainted I was with inventing my own games only to play them alone when I was four.

The first day at primary school, the day I was no longer the king of a kingdom nor a powerful lord of all my pets, I was just a clumsy soccer player. I could not sing the simplest children songs and I did not know how to talk to a girl. I was different, but interestingly, I loved it! My friends could teach me to play soccer someday, but they could never tell me how to come up with a soccer match in which three teams compete. Frequent conversations could give me courage to face a girl, but they would never show me how to make my friends immerse themselves in my endless adventure stories. Mr. Granary did this! He never bothered teaching me something I could learn by myself. He did not want me to immitate anyone because my differences built up my personal values. He made me a person whom I am now really grateful that I have been. And in the end, that is why I call him my teacher.

A freezing winter afternoon, I dropped by the empty space where Mr. Granary used to lie, standing there silently for a while, doing nothing. I breathed slowly, recognizing something familiar which I had so far forgotten -- a damp smell, a cool feeling. And imaginarily, I saw an old grand building with a four-year-old boy chasing after dragonflies.

Undergraduate / "For Christ and His Kingdom"; Wheaton Supp/ Why Wheaton? [7]

Give my two essays some comments please, especially about their grammar mistakes and ideas. Deadline is coming so fast T_T. Thank you all a lot ^^.

Please tell us why you are interested in Wheaton (Characters available 1000):

"For Christ and His Kingdom" - This expression caught my eye at first sight although I am not Christian nor am I religious. Personally, I have always believed in "a God somewhere". Despite not even knowing his name, that belief is itself a great power to me, which has given me helpfulness towards anyone in need, confidence when talking exams, and honesty in every word I say. Belief drives my life with its own rules which are even more powerful that disciplines and laws. It teaches me things that even the best-sellers cannot tell. And that is why Wheaton's coordination between religion and education is amazing to me.

At Wheaton, there is not a concept of the conflicts between science and spiritualness considering its perfect Mathematics and Chemistry courses. With a commitment to building the church and improving society world-wide, the massive international opportunities and the best campus food in the USA, Wheaton is the place where I really want to be in my coming unforgettable years.

Optional Essay
Discuss briefly an area of academic interest or a contemporary issue you hope to explore in college. Why is this of interest to you? (Characters available 1200)

Months ago, a schoolmate of mine collapsed from a serious fever. Due to the lack of doctor's advices, she was not brought to the hospital until worrisome symptoms like convulsions and delirium started to appear. However, that fever would not have been fatal if her family was not poor. The treatment to the girl was delayed for hours before consequently lasting for two months without any positive result. And since one week ago, a girl who should now be going to school has begun her vegetable existence at the age of seventeen.

The tragic ending of such a story has strengthened my desire to become a great physician in the future. If finding out a treatment for cancer is the dream of many medical students, doctors and scientists, I am more interested in another direction: to produce cheaper drugs and treatments. All over the world, in my home country or in Africa, in USA or in Haiti, health care is out of reach for many people. And day by day, those people are undeservedly losing their lives to ordinary diseases. To my belief, although reducing the price of an aspirin bottle from 6$ to 3$ may not bring me a Nobel prize, it would bring many people all over the world another chance, to live.

Undergraduate / Save the World; Bowdoin Supp/Intellectual engagement/Common Good/Connection to place [5]

Prompt
In an effort to understand your interests and aspirations for college, we ask you to select one of the three topics below and provide a response

of up to 250 words. Please include your name, birth date, and your topic choice at the top of the page.
Bowdoin students and alumni often cite world-class faculty and opportunities for intellectual engagement, the College's commitment to the
Common Good, and the special quality of life on the coast of Maine as important aspects of the Bowdoin experience.
Reflecting on your own interests and experiences, please comment on one of the following:
1. Intellectual engagement
2. The Common Good
3. Connection to place

I think generally a supplemental essay aims to understand why we want to attend a certain college, so I wrote my Bowdoin supplemental essay like this. Please give me some comments. Thank you a lot.

Poverty! I have seen it. It subtly appears in the sweaty smell of manual workers in my hometown. It is painted in the messy and dirty clothes children in my old primary school wear. And it lies in the dark complexions of diligent farmers under the burning sunshine.

I have grown up in a place like that, where life is hard and people have to labor for an austere living. Although in every conversation I have attended, the word "poverty" rarely occurred, I can still see deep in people's eyes a restless hope of having a better life. Such hope has so far built up on me a desire to change my own life and to change the world. But unfortunately, it does not show me where to start. Being a billionaire? Maybe...

I used to think that changing the world is just the concern of someone like Bill Gates. But as I learnt about Bowdoin and the common good, I realized "someone like Bill Gates" is not the only one who could make life better.

At Bowdoin, there is the Common Good day held in a yearly basis. There are passionate professors and incredible Dining Service Staff who tirelessly contribute to a better life. And there is a long-lasting commitment to the common good launched by Joseph McKeen two centuries ago.

When people plant a tree, the Earth becomes greener and when volunteers tutor a kid, they are potentially sowing the seeds of a talent. I do not know whether in the future, I can be as influential as Dan Hanley or Franklin Pierce or not, but I know that at Bowdoin, I do not need to be a super hero if I want to save the world.