i need help fixing this essay! i know there is something wrong with it but i don't know how to change it. please correct anything you find wrong. any feedback or criticism would be helpful. thank you in advance!
Prompt-
Describe a situation where you had to work or closely associate with someone from a culture very different from your own. What challenges did you face and how did you resolve them?
It is funny how two completely different things can go so well together. Like apples and peanut butter. The apple, with its fresh crunchiness and smooth, delicate texture, and the peanut butter, sticky and chewy yet delicious, are harmonious when put together. The apple gives a bit of a bite to the peanut butter and makes it easier to swallow than if it were eaten on its own. The peanut butter, on the other hand, makes the apple tastier and enhances its flavors. They complement each other and balance each other out. This is how I feel about me and _____.
I moved to Myanmar when I was twelve, grouchy and upset; upset because I had just been forced to leave behind my friends, my dog, my home, and the rest of my perfect, or so I thought, life in Eritrea. I did not want to be there. I thought I would never get used to the new culture, the new climate, the new people and the new school.
I met _____ on my first day of eighth grade and immediately realized we had nothing in common. She is Burmese with an Indian and Irish background. I am Italian. She is Muslim. I come from a Catholic family. She speaks the so-called Burglish, while I have a strong American accent. She is all about reverence and containment, keeping her feelings in check as well as her ideas. I am loud and bold, the "shameless white girl" who questions authority and dares to say that "seya", Burmese word for "teacher", is not always right.
Eventually, _____ was able to look past our differences and invited me to sleep-over at her house. I was nervous at the idea. What was her family like? What kind of food did they eat? What if they did not like me? But I was desperate for a friend so I agreed to stay over the following weekend.
When it was dinner time, I could feel my heart thumping in the chest. In my family, I am well-known for being a picky eater. Her parents offered me a variety of different curries and, not wanting to seem rude, I let them place some in my plate. I was ready to begin eating, but...where was my spoon? I suddenly realized we were supposed to eat with our hands. I wanted to make the differences between us unimportant, so I tried my best to take the food with my fingers. Everyone laughed. They asked me if I would rather eat with a spoon and a fork, but I was determined to learn and become one of them, so I politely turned down the offer. I found myself falling in love with their food and fascinated by the way they ate it.
I started to look forward to the weekends just so I could go over to _____'s house, try some new exotic curry, talk to her family and learn more about her religion and culture. I got to know her whole family, too. Grandparents and uncles and aunties and cousins- they all knew me. They taught me some Urdu and Burmese and I taught them words in Italian. We would watch Bollywood movies together and listen to Burmese music. When there were no men around, the girls would show me some dance moves or teach me how to put on a "hijab". We played soccer together and the whole family would cheer for me. I felt like I belonged. I felt at home.
_____ and I have learned from one another rather than letting our differences divide us. I have absorbed some of the respect and traditions that play a huge role in the Burmese culture and have learned the Burmese ways as, for example, the fact that it is polite to remove shoes before entering their houses (although in our culture it is the exact opposite). On the other end, _____ has become more open-minded and willing to speak out. She now realizes that displaying affection or wearing shorts is not "inappropriate" but completely normal.
There are still times when _____ is slightly embarrassed by me dancing in public or trying on an outfit that I have no intention to buy. Some other times, we fight for petty reasons, like the one time she would not ask her parents for permission to come to my birthday party, but we always remain best friends. The diversity between our cultures might have caused some misunderstandings, but it also helped us growing up. She is the peanut butter and I am the apple. On our own, we're good, but together we're undoubtedly better.
In my opinion you have written a good essay describing your friend, but you have to describe
1- a situation which was problematic and in which you two had to work together
2- which were the reasons why it was problematic?
3- How did you overcome them perhaps in your conclusion
Good Luck, and I did love the analogy, It works with the essay i was hoping to read but it doesn't with the description of your friend
Lorena Costilla
thank you so much! i had a feeling that was the problem with my essay but i didn't know what i was supposed to do to make it better. thanks again, i will try to find a specific example and fix it.
-'sweet-looking girl'- I don't ever like the word 'sweet' uless it's describing taste... It's meaningless, an empty praise word like 'nice' or 'good'... you might want to change it to something a bit more emphatic!
-"My ingenuousness intimidated her" : ingenuity?
-"we got used to our dissimilarities and liked the other for the way she was"... I THINK you should use the word 'each' somewhere in the sentence as it increases clarity... maybe like this: "..and we ech liked the other for the way (who?) she was."
-I think you should talk more about WHY she's the peanut butter and not the apple.
-Also, I think you shoud talk, on a deeper level, about the changes she brought in you: because right now it seems a it trivial. So, instead of saying you imbibed her culture, as you did in " I now know I should remove my shoes before entering a person's house," maybe you can say that she made you more sensitive to cultural differences and respecting diversity. Talk about real personality growth, now it seems a BIT trivial.
Hoped this helped!
Haha, I found this amusing because I'm Burmese :)
Are you in Burma right now curiously?
"dares to say that "seya", Burmese word for "teacher", is not always right. "
Amusingly, all my cousins love to correct the teacher. But that was mostly in private tuition/cram school, the public school they are in is waaay to big for the teacher to even hear them probably lol
"I suddenly realized we were supposed to eat with our hands. I wanted to make the differences between us unimportant, so I tried my best to take the food with my fingers. " - Haha, hand eating ftw. Hopefully you washed it before then though
"The diversity between our cultures might have caused some misunderstandings, but it also helped us growing up." - This sounds really weird. I think "differences" would be a better word than diversity. Also, I guess I can see how "growing up" fits but it sounds a little awkward in my opinion. If you can find a better wording that'd be cool but if not that's also fine :)
Anyways, overall, I'm not sure how much my opinion will help because sometimes the tidbits of my culture distract me. Overall I like the essay. My impression of you is that you are a outgoing, enthusiastic, and a little stubborn. Not sure if that will get you admitted, but good luck :)
haha, well thanks for your comments, i will try to fix that sentence.
and no, i'm not in burma anymore, left a couple of months ago.
thank you once again =)
