Okay, so I just finished the rough draft of my essay, however, it's kind of all over the place and I can't figure out what to say the for last sentence. You guys know that the last sentence is the one that leaves the last imprint on the readers, or atleast I think so. I also wrote a bit too much and I know you're supposed to keep this concise. So keep in mind, if you do plan on reading this (which by the way thank you, thank you), that this is definitely NOT the final draft and it has a lot of revising to be done, but I simply don't know where to start. I appreciate all critique, so don't be afraid to speak honestly about it. The theme in general may be a cliche, but I'm hoping in the way that I've written it, it has become my own.
"Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you."
Usually it's the spiders that get me to squirm, but when I had to see my parents attend my own faux funeral when I was simply sixteen years old, I decided then that a camel spider was harmless.
What caused such a revelation was a program that my high school holds every other year called 'Every 15 Minutes'; a program based on a study in which every fifteen minutes someone out in the world is killed by a drunk driver. Then, on that fateful day, the "victims" of the drivers are to be pulled out of class and become "ghosts", not to see their friends again till the next morning at a memorial service all the upperclassmen and their families attend. Truth be told, when I was one of the randomly selected upperclassmen to be one of the "victims", I was more excited and curious rather than concerned for the extreme emotions that lay ahead of my journey. One could say that was a source of my own naivety to the gravity of the situation.
I've always figured that the simple idea of existence is all we know, for we as human beings have done nothing but exist. We know we are breathing, reverberating atoms going from one place to another; a Point 'A' to a Point 'B'. For example, I couldn't imagine not going to the seas of the Mediterranean and writing about my life thus far or going to college and trying to understand Kafka's view of the world over a basket of muffins with other scholars after all my years of lusting for it. If everything was to come to an abrupt stop, neglecting even a hint of warning, I couldn't put the image in my head. All I saw until that day was a crystalline future.
And that day was December 4th, 2008.
The school day began as normal as ever - the same routine, the favorite parking spot and the usual conversation between friends. Then the intercom began to crackle, for everyone knew that this was the day that their peers would be pulled out of class because they were now considered "ghosts" due to a drunk driver. Periodically, every fifteen minutes of each class period, name by name was called and the school was told that they had been killed by a driver under the influence. I was unaware of when my time would come, but the suspense continued to build with thicker and thicker amounts of nervousness.
I don't remember how they said I died. However, I recognized my name being said on the intercom during Photography class, so I knew then I had to get up and leave immediately to the auditorium where all the other "victims" were to stay.
Maybe one of the hardest parts of that morning before I left the classroom was standing in front of my classmates and having to hear the town's sheriff read the obituary my mother wrote. Even before his deep voice really reverberated on all corners of the classroom with my mother's own personal affliction reaching our ears, I felt her mother's words. They somehow shaped themselves into little waves of smoke, giving me a lingering touch on the arm before dissolving into reality.
The classroom in itself was dead silent, with only the sound of all of our emphatic hearts beating in unison.
That night the victims were to stay in a local Marriott before the memorial the next morning. Prior to going to bed, I grabbed a handful of notebook paper from my school binder and began to write. From there I wrote letters to my parents about how much I loved them, distinct memories and simple words. By recognizing every single emotion on the spectrum, coming into contact with them and then explaining them through the words that convey me best to the people that loved me most, the papers became my very conscience in scribbled blue pen.
I had finally understood.
A couple weeks later I walked to a place called Tarantula Hill with my friend Matt. Hundreds of years ago, the hill used to be a volcano along with many other hills that reside in Thousand Oaks, California. As for the name? I'll never know where it came from, but maybe it's been in front of me all along. The climb up the hill is steep and serpentine, but we climbed just because we felt compelled to. Maybe me more so than he, for by the middle of the climb he considered me to be on the brink of lunacy. Yet we conquered it, and we stood on top of the hill of tarantulas as they call it, I was secretly telling the spiders that if I could take hold of life after pretending to have lost it then they were simply eight legged rocks under my shoes.
I told Matt my experience as we stood on top of the world, hands on our hips and looking over the society we had grown up in.
"Daunting, isn't it?" He asked, in which I could only tilt my head to the side in a pensive manner. He explained that by looking at everyone we know move under us in a hurry while we stand from up above in a standstill was paramount, but even more so with the knowledge that we would be leaving them for something out and beyond - a place unbeknown to us. This, he said, was intimidating.
But after everything I had learned in the short lived program, I could only disagree. It wasn't daunting to be going away to school, nor was it frightening to be on a hill that was named after big hairy spiders. None of these things were what either of us could possibly find scary, because we had yet to challenge them. On the hike down, the lights of my hometown town glowed brilliantly and each rooftop seemed to cry in a foreign tongue;
"Les retrouvailles, les retrouvailles!" The personified wails of the tiles and bricks seemed to know the moral of that chapter in my life better than myself, for I had indeed found something precious that had been lost; the beauty and impeccable satisfaction of a new challenge for such a gentle life and the respect for every whisper of breath that left my lips. I wanted to coax the homes of my neighbors with my honest mind;
"And lost, never again."
Well yes, I think the length is what is really bothering me, haha. But really? Nothing else? Wow! Thank you so much! That makes me feel so much better :) Not to sound like a total lurk or anything, but I saw your Brown supplement with the, coincidentally, French novelist, and thought it was really strong. It's a competitive beyond competitive school, so I wish you the best of luck!
I think the paragraph structures can be rearranged because you have a strong and interesting topic, but it's lost when I read it. If you reorganize and shorten, you'll be good.
Show, don't tell the part about your mother reading the obituary-- that would be amazing to read. Let the reader experience your uneasiness-- make your readers understand this out of body experience you had in a more personal manner. Switch to first person point of view, rather than the reflective tone you use.
Great first draft now keep working on
1. Rearrange structure
2. Better define impact (of the essay and of the event)-- build suspense? don't tell us this is a fake funeral maybe, make us confused yet intrigued about what's going on? I don't know, you'll have to come up with this part :)
3. Use more engaging language- I noticed faux wedding, was interested then lost my attention and barely skimmed the rest and knew you would make it into a "I learned this through this experience" kind of essay.
I love the topic you used but with such a strong topic, you also need to have stronger writing.
