Prompt: Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa told The New York Times, "The only way of not generating conflict is to do nothing, and I wasn't elected to do nothing." What issue quickens your pulse and inspires you to join the fray?
This is an optional essay and the instructions said think outside the box and take a risk, so that's what I tried to do. Here it is:
I've never been able to watch someone squish a bug. As an insect-lover who believes that every creature deserves the right to live, the sight is too much for me to bear. I'm the girl who's always trying to rescue critters from undeserved death, and although people make fun of me for it, I'd rather stand up for what I believe in than do nothing at all.
My first memory of saving insects happened when I was in fifth grade. It was the year that marked the resurgence of cicadas in southwestern Ohio, and the winged, red-eyed bugs were everywhere-they swarmed sidewalks, covered driveways, and made it virtually impossible for people to get anywhere without some inconvenience. However, rather than trying to avoid the bugs, many of my classmates thought it would be fun to kill as many as possible. They marched through the middle of the sidewalks, bringing their knees up high and violently stomping down on any cicadas that crossed their paths. I decided to come to the defense of the bugs-in an act of childish valiance, I started scooping up cicadas by the handful and depositing them in yards, where I thought they would be safe from the rubbery wrath of my classmates' sneakers. Unfortunately, my plan did not work. As packs of fifth-graders saw what I was doing, they simply ventured into the yards to kill the bugs, despite-or perhaps motivated by-my incessant shouts of "Stop it!" While I was not able to succeed in saving the cicadas that day, the experience awakened in me a strange kind of fury. Who did these people think they were, taking the lives of innocent cicadas? What gave them the right to kill with such leisure? Angry at my classmates and lost in thought, I picked up a cicada and held it in my palm. The insect was not pleasant-looking by conventional means-it had a thick black body, spidery legs, and beady red eyes-but as I looked at the little guy, I realized that he was much cuter than people gave him credit for. He just needed some love.
Although I'm not quite as "gung-ho" as I was in fifth grade, I'm still quick to save a bug that looks like it's in trouble. If I'm inside my house and one of my family members notices a spider and tries to kill it, I yell "Wait!" Then, I coax it onto the nearest piece of paper, open a door or window, and let it outside. I know that "a bug is just a bug", but the way I think of it is this: aren't we all just creatures? What makes one living thing more important than another? And, if giant creatures existed that ate humans for pleasure, would we still feel the same nonchalance at killing insects? Maybe I'm just a sentimentalist, but when it comes to the battle of "Sneaker v. Bug", I'll always stand firmly on the side of Team Bug.
"My first memory of saving insects happened when I was in fifth grade." Replace "happened" with "was"
I really like your essay! If it weren't for my fear of touching bugs/seeing them, you might have won me over to Team Bug =)
It's very creative, and I like how you included your first memory of bug-defending. And including the word "gung-ho"...I don't know why, but it made me laugh.
Good luck, and thanks for reading my essay too!
I would reword "My first memory of saving insects" to "The first time I saved an insect" or something similar. There's nothing wrong with the original, but I feel like it sounds a bit awkward.
Everything in the middle is fantastic! I can relate to your anecdote because I've had a similar experience (and I'm sure the admissions officers did too). One thing I would change is your constant use of the word kill. It just gets repetitive after a while, so just get out a thesaurus and replace a few of them.
The last paragraph is very daring. Lots of rhetorical questions!
I would personally tone it down a bit.
The reason why rhetorical questions are dangerous is because some readers might answer those questions differently than you do. For example, I would delete "if giant creatures existed that ate humans for pleasure, would we still feel the same nonchalance at killing insects?" because I personally would be for killing insects if they could kill us.
Other than that, great essay! I wish you the best of luck.
