Pretty pretty please, SLAUGHTER this with red ink! One of my top choice schools!
PROMPT
Respond in 400-600 words: Wallace Bacon, a recipient of an honorary doctorate from Emerson College in 1975, wrote that the liberal arts, or humanities, 'are concerned with the question of what makes life worth living. And that question concerns not simply oneself but others. The humanities must help us learn who we are; they must help us learn the otherness of others.' In this light, describe an encounter with someone or something different--an 'other' which revealed to you your sense of self and your relation to humanity. This encounter may involve a person, place, culture, or text (book, speech, film, play, etc.). To upload a document in response to this question, please click the 'upload' button below. If your upload is successful, you will see a 'view document' button and a 'delete' button appear next to the question.
"Deconstructed in Dixie"
I'd like to think of myself a worldly person. Growing up outside the big cities of New York and Los Angeles, I always felt that I'd seen it all. Factories and freeways have been my world since I was born, and ethnic minorities have been a majority in my life. However, a recent trip to visit my uncle and Alzheimer's-stricken grandmother in rural Georgia shattered that superficial cosmopolitanism.
"They live just outside Atlanta," my mother informed me with encouragement. "You can go into the city whenever you like." These words eased some of the nerves I had about my first baby steps into a world where cotton and Christ had conquered. While I wasn't excited to face the sultry humidity of a Georgian April, the thought eating my weight in peaches and pecan pie was comforting.
While my mother and her brother were both raised Episcopalian, she converted to Buddhism in adulthood while he became a Baptist minister. This resulted in an exchange where my mother, after he told her she was going to Hell, didn't speak to him for ten years, a wound that only started healing when my grandmother's condition needed full familial support. While they had reconciled, their interactions were stained with the cultural schism they created.
My uncle picked us up at Hartsfield-Atlanta International and we travelled to his suburban McMansion. I was expecting an easy ride down a comforting six-lane highway to a house with a sidewalk out front and a convenience store nearby, just like the suburbs I knew. I was mistaken. In what seemed like an eternity, we made our way through forests and fields until we came to a remote subdivision far from any other evidence of human life. My mother and I were shocked urbanites who didn't know what to do. "I guess the cows on the farm across the street don't help my case for you guys moving down here, do they?" my uncle said, humorously defeated. I instantly knew that excursions into Atlanta, my only means for achieving human contact outside the Baptist bubble, were impossible.
The majority of our time there, we kept to ourselves. My mother and I discussed our recent college visits, while my uncle and his wife deliberated over their forthcoming Easter plans. None of us paid much mind each other or to my grandmother - she had always been an independent person, so she only wanted help when she truly needed it. In her delusion, she decided that the kitchen floor needed urgent cleaning, and rushed as fast as she could in her frail state to get a mop.
"I said I'll clean it! I'm tired of being waited on like I can't do anything!" She began to mop the kitchen floor, exerting every last bit of energy she could into the task. However, she couldn't carry on - she started getting dizzy and leaning on the counter unable to support herself. All of us rushed over to make sure she didn't fall, forgetting the tension we created for ourselves to prevent injury. Finally, as she was about to faint, my mother caught her and lay her gently on the floor.
After my grandmother's scare, the four of us realized why we had initially been brought together. We realized that any trivial labels we put on ourselves - Buddhist, Baptist, Yankee, or country - needed to be pushed aside if we were to help my grandmother in her time of need. Regardless of our beliefs, we were family, and we had to support each other. It was in that pecan paradise that I became aware of my prejudices and learned to cast them aside.
ethnic minorities have been a majority in my life.
so well put (:
Your essay is really well-written, but I feel like you may need to elaborate on how you "became aware of my prejudices and learned to cast them aside."
The prompt asks to explain how an occurance "
revealed to you your sense of self and your relation to humanity"
..so just elaborate more-- look more into how the accident with your grandma shaped who you are today.
I would appreciate if you could critique my essay as well..thanks (:
