Please, I need all the criticisms I can get! All my teachers are not replying to my emails and I'm freaking out because I do not have editors to look through my essay. My dream school is UC Berkeley!
I can still recall how the cold, October air pierced through my skin for the very first time where the Sun once kissed me. The long, narrow street was covered with darkness, and amidst the vale of shadow that consumed my surroundings were the small pulses of light that burned at the top of each lamp post, helping me see the path to my new home. Fear and uncertainty were my companions then. They were the darkness that began to surround my very being when my family and I moved to the United States for the first time. It was words then that became my small, steady pulses of light. Eager to lead me, not to my new home, but to my myself.
The American way of life was overwhelming, unforeseeable, and a difficult reality to accept for an eight year old Filipino girl who spoke broken English. For the spring lamb who used her hands as her own utensils and spoke in a broken second tongue, America was confusing. In America, I was told to never take off my shoes when entering someone's home when, in the Philippines, it was normal. I was told to celebrate Thanksgiving when my family and I traditionally never did. I was told to celebrate Christmas on the 25th when, traditionally, my family and I celebrated on the 24th. The longer my family and I stayed in the United States, the longer I felt as if my identity was being completely erased, and turned into something unrecognizable.
I began to fear, doubt and question my own individuality. I had no anchor points from which to measure my speech, my actions, and my behavior correctly. My parents, who worked laboriously to earn our living within grape fields, couldn't help my inner turmoil. As days progressed into long years, conformity became a necessity, and I began to hate myself. I hated my dark brown eyes, my flat sunken nose, and my light ebony skin. I hated that I didn't have the features of an American.
But then, everything changed.
I read a book for the very first time. At eleven years old, I read 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone.' After reading those first few, vital pages, I was consumed; I gave my every thought and my every emotion to the ink that danced in linear rows before my very eyes. Books are often read for escapism, but it became more to me. I learned that within each character, is the potential to teach an array of lessons that are often ignored like how Harry Potter taught me to be a leader, to love myself, and that I'll be okay no matter how crushing life can be.
All the lessons that I've learned from these characters and others have been incorporated throughout my life many times and led me to be my own person. And so, I decided to lead my own life and do what I love most: to become a writer myself, to influence others with words, just as I have been influenced, moulded and remade by the writings of others.
I can still recall how the cold, October air pierced through my skin for the very first time where the Sun once kissed me. The long, narrow street was covered with darkness, and amidst the vale of shadow that consumed my surroundings were the small pulses of light that burned at the top of each lamp post, helping me see the path to my new home. Fear and uncertainty were my companions then. They were the darkness that began to surround my very being when my family and I moved to the United States for the first time. It was words then that became my small, steady pulses of light. Eager to lead me, not to my new home, but to my myself.
The American way of life was overwhelming, unforeseeable, and a difficult reality to accept for an eight year old Filipino girl who spoke broken English. For the spring lamb who used her hands as her own utensils and spoke in a broken second tongue, America was confusing. In America, I was told to never take off my shoes when entering someone's home when, in the Philippines, it was normal. I was told to celebrate Thanksgiving when my family and I traditionally never did. I was told to celebrate Christmas on the 25th when, traditionally, my family and I celebrated on the 24th. The longer my family and I stayed in the United States, the longer I felt as if my identity was being completely erased, and turned into something unrecognizable.
I began to fear, doubt and question my own individuality. I had no anchor points from which to measure my speech, my actions, and my behavior correctly. My parents, who worked laboriously to earn our living within grape fields, couldn't help my inner turmoil. As days progressed into long years, conformity became a necessity, and I began to hate myself. I hated my dark brown eyes, my flat sunken nose, and my light ebony skin. I hated that I didn't have the features of an American.
But then, everything changed.
I read a book for the very first time. At eleven years old, I read 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone.' After reading those first few, vital pages, I was consumed; I gave my every thought and my every emotion to the ink that danced in linear rows before my very eyes. Books are often read for escapism, but it became more to me. I learned that within each character, is the potential to teach an array of lessons that are often ignored like how Harry Potter taught me to be a leader, to love myself, and that I'll be okay no matter how crushing life can be.
All the lessons that I've learned from these characters and others have been incorporated throughout my life many times and led me to be my own person. And so, I decided to lead my own life and do what I love most: to become a writer myself, to influence others with words, just as I have been influenced, moulded and remade by the writings of others.
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