Hi! I just finished this essay, could someone help me please? Thank you so much!
Prompt:
Option 4 - Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation at the beginning of your essay.
Homeless in Victoria
"Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe."
- Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)
It was 2 a.m. and I was shivering inside a 24-hour bank in the city of Victoria. Unfortunately my friend Tahmina and I missed the last bus to school (both of us live on campus), and as we could not afford a taxi, we had to be homeless in Victoria that night. We wandered along the streets for hours, finally ended up waiting for dawn inside this 24-hour bank. The night was cold and we were rather scared, for most people on the streets at this time were either drunk or homeless.
Just while we were sitting half awake, a middle aged lady walked in with a strong smell of cigarettes. She murmured hi and sat in another corner. I stole a glance at her. Wearing clothes that did not fit her, the lady seemed exhausted. She took out a black plastic bag from her pocket and fished out some colourful candies. I guessed that she belonged to the group of "homeless people", or street people.
To be sincere, her entrance made me feel uncomfortable as I did not talk to homeless people before and scarcely knew about them. As she sat down, she looked at our direction; quickly I moved my eyes away to avoid direct eye contact. I did not even know myself what I was hiding from.
So three of us sat there for a while, and then the lady broke the silence first. "So, what are you gals doing here?" she said as if to continue a conversation. I looked up only to find that she was looking at me with an amiable smile. Even though seldom did I speak with strangers, I told her our circumstances. I stammered a bit, but her smile kept me going on. It felt natural: we sat there watching the cars passing Victoria Main Street, and chatted quietly. I learned about her story too. How she had an alcoholic father, how she dropped high school, and how her husband left her and their daughter.
We kept talking until she left the bank at 5 o'clock in the morning and we also got on our 2-hour bus ride back to school. I reflected a lot on the bus. Chances are I would never see her again, but in several hours we became good friends and she taught me more than I realized. For so long I have been seeing the world around me with my eyes instead of my heart. Deep inside I labelled people with different tags: rich, poor, middle-class, Chinese, successful, etc. Unconsciously I judged people before even trying to get to know them. As Haruki Murakami stated in his novel Kafka on the Shore, "Narrow minds devoid of imagination. What I absolutely fear and loathe. "
A night homeless in Victoria freed me from my former blindness. I decided to seize my "usurped ideals" by opening my heart and accept everybody, everything without any biases. Try to reach out to not only people like me, but more importantly people different from myself; try to things that I am comfortable with, but more importantly, that I feel challenging and difficult.
From that homeless night, I tried to live a life with a heart open to accept.
It is good overall, but I'm left with, so what did she do to "try to live a life with a heart open to accept?" It needs more impact. By impact I mean what substantive changes you made.
but overall, it is an excellent essay.
