Undergraduate / Taekwondo has challenged me to grow internally; FAILURE [2]

I feel like I need more specifics, but I can't seem to get any ideas on what kind of specifics. Its 569 words, so I have pretty good amount of space to add stuff. PLEASE HELP!! ANY FEEDBACK, EVEN HARSH AND CRITICAL IS APPRECIATED!!

Prompt: Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?

Beads of sweat flow down the nape of my neck. Blood rushes into my head. My cheeks are a cherry red. I step forward and bow. Then, right foot back, fists in the air, I face my opponent: a black kicking shield. I am now a first degree black belt in Taekwondo. When I first began learning the discipline of martial arts, it was all about kicking, punching and blocking. I felt like I could master it instantly, but it never turned out that way.

I was a lucky one in that I could learn this discipline from my father, a fifth degree black belt and a grandmaster. As my father led me through a variety of movements, I learned that for every motion, there was a purpose attached to it. For example, every time my father yelled, "Horse stance," I used to think that this was just a ready stance to prepare me for punching. However, even this stance was a move of self-defense used when somebody would grab me from behind. Also, being in martial arts did not mean learning violence, but rather going on a journey, a journey of not only learning to kick and punch but also to build character, discipline, and courage. In order to properly learn Taekwondo, I could not do it just for my own enjoyment of kicking and punching, but I needed to be fully committed not just to master the physical skills, but more importantly the mental aspects of martial arts. However, as I progressed through my journey to my black belt, the lessons began to get more difficult. I would slip and fall as I learned the new advanced kicks such as a jump spin kick. Even though I just learned the kicks and the punches, I would get frustrated at myself when my body would land on the ground. Nonetheless, I had to keep my focus and I could not forget the most important values of Taekwondo: respect, discipline, courage, and patience. Taekwondo is the only sport where students are required to show respect to their country by raising their hands to their hearts and bow to their masters, teachers, and classmates.

Taekwondo has challenged me to grow internally, as well as externally. It has taught me patience and discipline along with perfecting the kicks and punches. This is one sport where students need to be able to control themselves internally in order to do the physical motions and movements properly. It has also brought out my courage, not only the courage to take on opponents in real life but also the courage to fail - to fall, get back up, and learn from my mistakes. I know that a higher education will further my internal growth through additional challenges of independent critical thinking and further training of the mind. In Taekwondo, I am required to push myself farther than I am normally expected to go, to not lose the sight of my goal and to keep reaching for it. I will expect myself to do the same when I enter the college campus to step up and reach even higher. However I am never alone. The atmosphere of martial arts is surrounded by sources of encouragement, whether it is your master, instructor, parents, and/or other students. The road to a black belt was a journey. It was not always a pleasing one but a worthwhile one.

Scholarship / Starving Kids -- Questbridge Essay - Need to cut down a little. [2]

(500 word limit)
Option 3: If you could change one thing about your community, what would it be and why?

What's shocking isn't that poverty exists. It's that there is so much of it and it was always closer to me than I had imagined. Recent articles in the Arizona Daily Star showed a poverty map of Pima County with an average of 30 percent of kids living in poverty. However, this was just an average. Over sixty percent of kids live in poverty in Southern Tucson and about twenty percent of the community is unemployed. What was even more shocking was that the area I live in, Catalina Foothills, considered the rich or affluent part of the city, had nearly ten percent of children living in poverty. How can there be so much hunger and hardship among all this affluence and abundance?

I remember when I first moved to Tucson about six years ago. As my family and I drove around Tucson, I realized that there was a severe yet unique class division in Tucson in that there was the rich upper class up in the "foothills" area then there was the poor with their run-down pueblo-styled houses, fenced windows, and gates full of graffiti. There did not really seem to be a middle class. I know poverty exists everywhere but I don't ever remember seeing it as blankly as I did in Tucson. Coming from an urban city like Los Angeles, I remember feeling pity for the people living in these communities. However, it seemed like the Tucson community has become immune to the obvious existence of poverty because it's just everywhere and we see it all the time. It has become part of the scenery that we no longer notice as odd and just kind of glance over like it's a natural existence.

Arizona Daily Star actually ran a whole week's worth of articles on poverty. However, people's reactions and comments to these articles are even more appalling than the poverty statistics itself. General opinions of the public was that poverty was due to their own laziness, lack of marketable skills, wanting to live off the government, looking for freebies, etc. The community's stereotypical and judgmental comments showed that we as public have not progressed any in our narrow minds which explains why we have yet to provide an effective solution to overcoming poverty. This is a social, economic, and political issue that we all must get involved in instead of being immune to it like we are today. My biggest frustration is how I can make an impact on such a huge issue. Just thinking about it makes me feel overwhelmed and exhausted before I can even begin to figure out what part I can play in this crisis.

Seeing these articles gave me a wake-up call to help these children. Even as I eat my dinner, I wonder about my neighbors and if the child living next to me is eating his dinner, or if he's skipping it because his parents can't afford the meal. I begin to wonder who else is starving tonight. Therefore I decided that rather than avoiding the eyes of those holding up the sign at various intersections asking for help, I want to really look at the sign and look at the person.

Scholarship / "Honor the Family Name" - Questbridge Biographical Essay [3]

We are interested in learning more about you and the contexts in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations and accomplished your academic successes. Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How have these factors caused you to grow?

My father's dream was to become a fighter pilot. However, that dream came to a halt with his parents' decision to immigrate to the United States. and the Korean government could not trust him with a plane to fly with no family on ground. As the oldest of the three sons, he was expected to work and financially support his settling family. He worked as a dishwasher in a chinese restaurant, janitor at a beef jerky factory, housekeeper at a small motel inn, among others and other odd jobs. This was the standard in Asian culture, for the oldest to sacrifice and work to support the family. My father, who grew up in a household with aristocratic ancestry, was constantly told what was considered appropriate behavior. that He felt demeaned at times, but he also felt proud to be able to contribute to his family. However, my father did not want to live his entire life doing menial work for minimal wage.

Instead, he started taking classes at Portland Community College and earned enough credits to transfer to Oregon State University. My grandfather outright opposed: threatening to disown him, but my father did not waver. Learning that he could still attain his dream of becoming a pilot, he majored in computer science to gain advantage for acceptance into the ROTC program. I don'tdo not know where he got the bravery to take this on, particularly considering the fact that he's hadnever touched a computer before, barely spoke any English, and had to learn the language of computers which was yet another foreign language to him.adding this to this particular sentence causes a run-on. consider moving the blue phrase to a second sentence for easier understanding He talked of eating bread and butter, sitting in front of the computer, and crying because it was so tough. Why did he not give up? He wanted to be able to say later to his kids that they should not give up on anything, whether it be academics, sports, or life, and when asked, "Did you stick to it?," he can proudly say "yes." great narrative section!This is why when I have those difficult moments when I can't write my essays, when I can't memorize the vocabulary, when I wonder how I'm going to pass my AP exams, or when I cry when the homework seems endless and I'm still up at 4 a.m. studying, I want to quit it all, but I can't do notbecause my father didn't. did not.

Another reason why my father could not quit was the fact that he is from a noble family where it would have been considered shameful and embarrassing. As much as my grandfather objected to him leaving home, giving up would have been even a worse feat and would have caused my grandparents to hang their heads in shame. They wouldn'twould not be able to look at their friends and neighbors straight in the eyes with their oldest returning a quitter and a failure. This ideology has been ingrained into my father and was mentioned frequently to me and my siblings as we were growing up. Living up to the family heritage and not shaming the family name was very important in our family. We were told that, as nobles, we do not beg for food, do not devour massive amounts of food when invited to friend's homes, are always calm and behave with the utmost manners, and do not talk in loud voice. It mattered how we acted at home, but it mattered more how we acted outside our home because people did not just talk about us as individuals, but referred to us as a whole family. For example, if we were to misbehave, instead of saying, "That Brittnay is really loud and rude," people would ratherinstead say, "Whose kid is that?"

Maintaining the family's name and being dignified and honorable were very important characters within our family and taught to me at every age. I'veI have always been told that how I behave, the grades I receive, how I was regarded -you switch tenses a few times (behave, receive are in the present, regarded is in the past-by teachers, friends, and others were a reflection on the family and how my siblings would also be influenced. This idea has had huge affect on my character, in my habits, and my sense of responsibility. For me, receiving all A's was crucial because anything less would be unacceptable and embarrassing. Even when I had group projects, I would do them well because I did not want to fall short and have my faults affect other members' grades, and when I participate in any activities like sports or clubs, I put all my energy and effort into it to make sure it produces the maximumideal? -maximum doesn't make sense for qualitative results-results. To others, the noble background may seem rigid and limiting, but for me it has created a higher sense of responsibility, a stronger sense of integrity, and a more solid sense of the character that will carry with me at all times.