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"Imagined Enemy essay" - University of Chicago Supplement



Paalexander 2 / 9  
Aug 23, 2012   #1
I would like feedback. I feel like my essay lacks substance.

Essay Option 1: "A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies." -Oscar Wilde.

Othello and Iago. Dorothy and the Wicked Witch. The Autobots and the Decepticons. History and art are full of heroes and their enemies. Tell us about the relationship between you and your arch-nemesis (either real or imagined).

I wake up and go over to the window drawing back my yellow polka dot curtains to invite the sun in today. The trees look the same way they always look, like comfortable lounging pillars of brown, and the woman from apartment 2201 is walking her golden retriever in front of my building during this time. It's twelve forty-five and the world seems so "alive." Routine. Nothing excites me the way it used to. Older people call it maturity, I call it unintentional suicide. Peering out of the window there are no smiles on my end, only an internal longing for adventure. Adventure comes to me in the form of a text message. PAULAAAAAA! CAN YOU CHILL? I won't disappoint. I'm going to chill. Why? This could be an opportunity for possible adventure. So I send a reply text, tell her that I'll hang out with her, get dressed, and when she arrives in front of my apartment building, I rush outside and hop into her car. Something watches me drive off through my bedroom window.

Ending up in downtown Ann Arbor with my best friend is nostalgic. We were here last weekend and two weekends before that. Something about downtown Ann Arbor makes me feel like I'm Neo from the matrix. Maybe it's the fact that every girl I pass feels comfortable in denim shorts so revealing that I've been programmed to consider it normal. These girls are Mr. Anderson and I have to fight for a smidgen of existence when it comes to individuality. Eighty-nine degree weather and I'm dressed in black denim jeggings and an emerald green turtleneck sweater. My best friend shakes her head disappointingly at me as we walk the sidewalk; she's also wearing "the virus." Nevertheless we walk downtown, get a bubble tea from Bubble Island, and while she admires the guys that walk by, I observe the elderly homeless man who is sitting on the same bench he was the last time I saw him. The wind doesn't stir him like it stirs me. He sits there settled, hair messily combed by the passing wind, in a state of nirvana. He's accepting of his situation.

We end our downtown trip with Noodles & Co. take out. As I sit in the passenger seat on the ride home, we listen to Justin Bieber's song "boyfriend" for the fifth time today. However, as opposed to the ride there, I don't sing along. I stare out the window and watch the road she drives me home on. The shortcut she uses is no longer a secret. When secrets are shared, they are no longer the same value. The secret becomes old news, now easily forgettable. That's what I classify today as: forgettable. Her voice during the car ride whizzes right by me, I'm not able to latch on to a piece of the conversation she's trying to hold. Like a friend I nod, and hope it's at the right moment so that I don't offend her. I tell her thank you when she releases me to my solitude, and I look up at my bedroom window to see the same something shaking it's head in disappointment.

Yesterday I told myself I wouldn't eat another box of food from Noodles & Co because it had become sickening. Just because someone didn't keep the promises they'd made to themselves didn't make them a bad person. Besides, going downtown today evoked temporary happiness. When my best friend asked me what I wanted to do today, I told that we should go downtown. My choice created my own mental infliction. Entering my room I toss my messenger bag by my keyboard stand I look over to the window. The something in my room speaks only to me, telling me that I can try again tomorrow. She also tells me to stay away from that homeless man in Ann Arbor because he will try to steal my happiness.

Liebe 1 / 524  
Aug 29, 2012   #2
Seems like a potentially good essay to be honest, and in my opinion, I think UChicago may like your approach to the essay prompt.
Could you make it clearer what the enemy is in this case though?
I am a bit lost with the promises concept, because I didnt quite get the impression that there was one to begin with? Perhaps if I read it again, I would find it, but I didnt get it on the first skim-read impression.

Post your revised essay, try and help some others on the site as well, but like I said, this does seem to be a rather interesting approach.


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