Hello readers. I would love to thank you in advance for taking your time to read this. This is my first attempt at my transfer essay to Smith and Mt. Holyoke. Any type of feedbacks are warmly welcomed. I got rejected by a school i really loved recently so please be very strict with the comments so that i can make a solid essay. :) Also i tried to be very honest in the essay. Let me know.
"How the hell do I do it?" "Take it one day at a time?"
I was talking to this puny sized yet ridiculously warm looking lady on an almost empty bus to Ocean beach. She was probably in her late 50s. I was in a less than good mood and to my greatest fear, she started talking to me. After the usual introductions, with a sweet nonchalance, she asked me what I was studying, to which I hesitantly answered, "Ahhh...nothing in particular". Quickly, she then asked me what I wanted to do with my life, to which I replied, "Iiiahhhh...don't know." She raised her head and her eyebrows slightly, in unison. I noticed it. My lips, hurriedly, hibernated inside my mouth, something that happens when I try to smile but fail miserably. And now she noticed it. With a dramatic flair in her voice, the lady said, "You will know when the time is right." And after, what I thought was an awkward silence, she added, "Take it one day at a time."
This piqued me. Not because I had heard it for the first time. God knows how many times I have heard people flaunting clichés whenever I poured away my frustrations over not being able to discover what my vocation was, while everyone else jauntily paraded around me, knowing all the details of their future plans. This particular overrated advice holds a special place in my memory because for the first time, I actually listened to it. For the first time, I confronted myself, someone who was not me. For the first time, I chose to dwell on what I had chosen to ignore before. That day, I was on my way to the beach, determined to lament about my long lost passion but by the time I got there, things had changed. I was even more determined to retrieve it: I decided to take a break.
When the highs of my liberating decisions had diminished, I found myself stupefied, back to square one. I couldn't believe what I was doing. Sitting at the airport like a zombie, stealthily staring at the passersby, I wondered what I would do when I get back home, without a degree, without a plan. But this time, I decided to let it all go. As soon as I got back home, I caught up with life. I continued doing what I passionately believed was worth doing: I started teaching. I taught English language classes and helped my cousin with her Praudh Siksha class for women, an experience that validated what I had already known.
One day when I was having one of my utterly pointless but painfully hilarious conversations with my family, I fixed my attention on my mom. She was smiling, holding a dot pen weakly in her right hand, between her thumb and her index finger. She was elegantly dragging her hand on a piece of paper. After a couple of minutes, she beamed. She demanded everyone's attention and held her page as a matador holds his cape. Then, in a feigned whiff of grandeur, my mother announced that she could now write her full name in both Nepali and in English. Right there and then, I knew what I had to do, or at least where to start from.
I, along with my family, have moved in and out of seven homes and currently residing on our eighth house. But with my college years in Dallas and San Francisco, I win over my family with two more points. Among all this ballyhoo, there has always been one substantial want that has been loyally consistent: my fixation on the society and its milieu. I have witnessed women, in Nepal, beaten down severely, simply for supernatural beliefs. I have watched lofty group of Christians, in Dallas, look down upon others who have different faiths. And I have been blown away by San Francisco's sense of freedom. All these have done nothing but stabilized my desire to explore more societies that the world has to offer, especially the ones in developing countries. And I hope to achieve that by taking on Sociology as my subject of interest. I know that I want to continue dedicating my life towards the betterment of women, like my mom, who have been deprived of the right to learn, and more importantly, to live. If you ask me what I am going to do in the future, I will confidently give you a stern "I don't know." answer. But I will also tell you this. I might not know what I want out of the future but what I do know is what I want out from my present. I am going to toil today, live today and do it all over again tomorrow. I have taken the lady's, now not so silly, advice and decided to take everything one day at a time.
"How the hell do I do it?" "Take it one day at a time?"
I was talking to this puny sized yet ridiculously warm looking lady on an almost empty bus to Ocean beach. She was probably in her late 50s. I was in a less than good mood and to my greatest fear, she started talking to me. After the usual introductions, with a sweet nonchalance, she asked me what I was studying, to which I hesitantly answered, "Ahhh...nothing in particular". Quickly, she then asked me what I wanted to do with my life, to which I replied, "Iiiahhhh...don't know." She raised her head and her eyebrows slightly, in unison. I noticed it. My lips, hurriedly, hibernated inside my mouth, something that happens when I try to smile but fail miserably. And now she noticed it. With a dramatic flair in her voice, the lady said, "You will know when the time is right." And after, what I thought was an awkward silence, she added, "Take it one day at a time."
This piqued me. Not because I had heard it for the first time. God knows how many times I have heard people flaunting clichés whenever I poured away my frustrations over not being able to discover what my vocation was, while everyone else jauntily paraded around me, knowing all the details of their future plans. This particular overrated advice holds a special place in my memory because for the first time, I actually listened to it. For the first time, I confronted myself, someone who was not me. For the first time, I chose to dwell on what I had chosen to ignore before. That day, I was on my way to the beach, determined to lament about my long lost passion but by the time I got there, things had changed. I was even more determined to retrieve it: I decided to take a break.
When the highs of my liberating decisions had diminished, I found myself stupefied, back to square one. I couldn't believe what I was doing. Sitting at the airport like a zombie, stealthily staring at the passersby, I wondered what I would do when I get back home, without a degree, without a plan. But this time, I decided to let it all go. As soon as I got back home, I caught up with life. I continued doing what I passionately believed was worth doing: I started teaching. I taught English language classes and helped my cousin with her Praudh Siksha class for women, an experience that validated what I had already known.
One day when I was having one of my utterly pointless but painfully hilarious conversations with my family, I fixed my attention on my mom. She was smiling, holding a dot pen weakly in her right hand, between her thumb and her index finger. She was elegantly dragging her hand on a piece of paper. After a couple of minutes, she beamed. She demanded everyone's attention and held her page as a matador holds his cape. Then, in a feigned whiff of grandeur, my mother announced that she could now write her full name in both Nepali and in English. Right there and then, I knew what I had to do, or at least where to start from.
I, along with my family, have moved in and out of seven homes and currently residing on our eighth house. But with my college years in Dallas and San Francisco, I win over my family with two more points. Among all this ballyhoo, there has always been one substantial want that has been loyally consistent: my fixation on the society and its milieu. I have witnessed women, in Nepal, beaten down severely, simply for supernatural beliefs. I have watched lofty group of Christians, in Dallas, look down upon others who have different faiths. And I have been blown away by San Francisco's sense of freedom. All these have done nothing but stabilized my desire to explore more societies that the world has to offer, especially the ones in developing countries. And I hope to achieve that by taking on Sociology as my subject of interest. I know that I want to continue dedicating my life towards the betterment of women, like my mom, who have been deprived of the right to learn, and more importantly, to live. If you ask me what I am going to do in the future, I will confidently give you a stern "I don't know." answer. But I will also tell you this. I might not know what I want out of the future but what I do know is what I want out from my present. I am going to toil today, live today and do it all over again tomorrow. I have taken the lady's, now not so silly, advice and decided to take everything one day at a time.
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