Undergraduate / Common App; The word suicide -- as I later found out -- is passed around in hushed voices [13]

Hello, I still have 50 words left and I'm wondering if I could have some help in wrapping up my essay as well -- thank you in advance!

Prompt #1: Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

I spent a month attending school in Seoul, South Korea as a sixth grader over the summer.

The classroom I was put in is stuffy and hot, the open windows lining one side of the wall, as well as the single electric fan in the corner, the only source of cool solace in the humid summer day. I sat reading the English-translated Odyssey as my textbook; the inability to speak Korean or to understand the language remained a barrier in the fundamentals of learning, but the teachers excused the English classics I chose as an "academic replacement" of the normal lessons that normal students get.

It was an average day until the wooden doors of the classroom slid open and a bespectacled man entered.

"Park Hye In, the principal would like to talk to you."

The word suicide - as I later found out - is passed around in hushed voices, and suddenly, the rambunctious classroom falls into a silence as though clear domes had been placed over our mouths; my lips moved, yet the noise left and bounced off the dome and back into my head, pummeling my young mind into action as it whirled and clicked to make sense of something foreign word.

Statistically, South Korea has a suicide rate of 24.7% out of everyone 100,000 people with a population of 50.22 million; Park Hye In had an older brother in high school, and he had joined the increasing numerical value.

This incident hounded me in the future.

Perhaps it was absolute certainty of my ineptitude that twisted itself into a malicious being that entrapped me within the perpetual cycle of procrastination and a fading joy of living; I felt as though I was worthless in a constantly moving world - living without a single goal.

I was fourteen when I first had thoughts of committing suicide.

Growing up consisted of one erratic change to another. We moved through three countries: first, Japan to South Korea due to my failing health in Japan's harshly humid conditions; second, South Korea to the U.S. for the opportunities that lay in its vast lands and an escape from the grueling education system implemented in the Asian nations. However, the stability that my family craved failed to appear as we constantly moved in Minnesota as well.

During the time, my mother acquired a job and eventually took over a floundering Asian grocery market, and with my father, who also had his equal share of unhappy occupations, raised it up to a successful business that still exists today. During the time, my brother and I remained confined to a large blue couch in the back room made of white tile and plaster, near the boxes of mails and records. Although our family now had more than enough to live off of by then, I was stuck in the strange juxtaposition of childhood and forced - expected - adult maturity.

It was only later, at the age of seventeen, that I stopped having such thoughts; a wonderful confidant, supportive friends all played key roles. While I could have focused on the path of recovery instead, it's the silent anguish, the pain that is caused by all different, and individual reasons, is what truly brings meaning to how precious breathing - growing - living is.

People often ask why I want to return to Korea as a psychologist, as a teacher. Why bother helping a society of people who believe mental treatment is just another Western custom, who scoff at the very idea of it?

Why not? Why should I let the students who are deprived of what had essentially saved me? Why should I wait for another to succeed before I even attempt it? I take pride in being Korean and I want to help the nation in a way I believe is crucial: I want to save another student like Park Hye In's brother.

Besides, I already taught myself Korean.