Hey guys, this is my essay for admission in Spring Semester to the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. The topic is "What do you do in your spare time?" Any feedback whatsoever is greatly appreciated.
I still remember when one of our neighbors had taught me how to draw a cat. I was around 4 years old then, and I must've spent about a hundred sheets of paper just drawing the same cat over and over and showing it proudly to anyone and everyone. It was around that time that my passion for drawing flared up.
In the next few years, I drew almost constantly. I would draw cars, animals, buildings, anything, really, so long as it got a pencil or crayon into my hand. My grandmother still has a box full of my 'artworks' from those years.
The passion is still there, but over the years, the time and motivation has decreased somewhat. As my skills slowly improved, and I began to realize what my strengths and weaknesses were, it started taking me longer to come up with an idea to draw, and the time gap between my drawings increased. That is, until I found out about paint.net, and got into digital art.
It's much easier to come up with something to make using the free computer program, and I spend a lot of time playing around with the effects and coming up with backgrounds for my desktop. With time, I've become quite adept at it, and I'm even thinking of starting an online gallery.
However, art isn't the only thing taking up my free time. About three years ago, I started writing short stories, ranging from one to a few pages long at the back of my notebooks in between classes. As it developed from 'something to do when you're bored' into an actual hobby, the length of my stories increased, and now I'm working on a story that already has seven chapters. Over time, I found that this hobby helps me to relax, as well as to express myself. I have a somewhat shy personality, so that is very important to me.
I know I'm not the most sportive of people, but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy playing sports. I have been playing soccer (well, actually, kick-abouts with a soccer ball since it's hard to come up with eleven-player teams in the small neighborhoods we've always lived in) ever since I was nine, and in my last few years of high school, I started getting into tennis as well. Now that I have half a year of free time, I am about to enroll in some tennis courses.
My other hobbies include playing video games, browsing through random sites on the internet looking for some catchy tidbit of information, learning about 3d modeling and computer programming, and, like pretty much everyone else, listening to music. I particularly enjoy finding new singers and bands to listen to, and that has influenced my taste in music a lot. I have been a fan of contemporary Russian music, I have been a Michael Jackson fanatic, I have been a huge fan of Italian pop music, and currently, my taste seems to have settled to rock music, with my latest 'newly discovered' band being Muse.
I know I seem to have a lot of hobbies, but that's because I seem to have lots of free time (although more often than not that's because I've forgotten about something I'm supposed to be doing), and I'm constantly searching for even more stuff to add to the collection. After all, who knows, maybe carpentry is more fun than it looks?
First thing I noticed was actually a grammar mistake. In the first sentence, you say "I still remember when one of our neighbors HAD taught me how to draw a cat." I don't think you need the "had". Cut it out and see how it sounds. Better? Worse? Also, I really like how you included humor in your essay like how you said you have lots of free time (although, I think it's supposed to be "a lot"..I'm not sure "lots" is a grammatically correct word..but I could be wrong). I'm no essay expert, but I had fun reading your essay. Make sure to have a lot of friends and/or family read it and get feedback from them too!
the time and motivation has decreased somewhat.
But over the years, my motivation towards art got decreased due to lack of spare time.As my skills slowly improved, and I began to realize what my strengths and weaknesses were, it started taking me longer to come up with an idea to draw, and the time gap between my drawings increased. T
... Well, you say you got demotivated and again it turns around to say that your skills got improved. There is very poor link between the previous idea and this one. You need to have a logical flow to convince the reader. Give some thought to this point!
