Common App option 1) My volunteer trip to the Philippines

I urgently need help!! This is a modified version of my old UC essay, made to fit common app topic.
Please leave any comments, critiques, corrections- they will be really, really appreciated. I particularly need someone to check my grammar.
Thanks!

Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

Beads of sweat trickled down from my forehead as I pushed my shovel once again into the soil. I could feel my face steaming in the sauna of tropical heat. I took off my gloves to find translucent vesicles on my palms- I smiled. Blisters are not often seen as a sign of achievement, yet after two days of sweat drenched toil, I counted each one with pride.

I was excavating the site for a septic tank for one of the houses constructed during the 2 weeks I spent in the Philippines in July 2008, in the Village of St.Dominics for Habitat For Humanity. The procedure was laborious, driving a metal spike into the unyielding ground and shoveling out rocks and soil. Progress was slow, each hand won meter, earned in sweat, blistered hands and aching muscles. Yet when I stood looking down at the resultant hole and then at the smiling village children, I felt a profound sense of accomplishment; I dug for them.

My father has often told me that people are defined not by their pronouncements, but what they actually do. This experience has made his advice deeply personal, for my early attempts at acknowledging poverty in the third world had amounted only to making donations to Save The Children, or buying trinkets from the Trade Aid Store. Here, I assembled concrete bricks, plastered walls with cement, and smoothed level the floors of these dwellings. I worked side by side with the village people, and chattered with their mischievous children during break times. I became a builder, and a friend. I learnt much from being both. As a friend, I came to truly understand these people's lives, the poverty in their bare feet and in their stories of cheap labor. They were real, not just some images on the Net that I click on and simply stare at. As a builder, I no longer passively observed the apparent suffering in sight. I was providing a shelter; I was, by my own effort, helping to construct better lives. Now I knew my role, and my strength.

Poverty, to me, is no longer an abstract concept. I have seen its human faces, smelt its open drains, and watched families struggle to support their children. However, while shoveling out 4 cubic meters of soil for each septic tank, I realized that if we individuals take small but meaningful steps to assist the lives of others in need, we can address this problem of poverty.

I also learnt from the smiles of the villagers, that as people, we are united far more by our similarities than divided by our differences. We share the common need for shelter, to be treated with dignity and respect, and above all, to hope that our children can have opportunity to realize their dreams, as my parents did brining me to New Zealand from Korea. Knowing that I could provide those opportunities, I am no longer a spectator but a builder. This experience has made me hungry to become involved in practical acts of service, and I am confident that many opportunities will present themselves by involvement in the campus of the university.

I think cutting down on the helping verbs will really make your paper a lot stronger. The ideas are definitely there - I felt your passion, and I remembered my service trip just from reading your words. You're sentence structure flows well and is quite varied as well. If you focus on your tense stuff, trying to get more active, powerful verbs, I think you'll be set

I take off the gloves and find..


Long sentence, tone it down.


I worked for them.


pronouncement doesn't make sense. I know you mean by 'what they say'.


Again, this sentence is too long. I actually get tired as I read the sentence, which is a bad sign. Impact your sentences by making them shorter. "My early attempts at acknowledging poverty in the third world had at one time, amounted to making trivial donations to Save The Children.


I worked for Habitat for Humanity also. Your experiences reflect a lot of mine. Overall, I really liked your essay and it does have variety of sentences, don't worry so much. You have made your essay your own which is a hard thing to do.