Please can someone help please help me with this essay?? I wanted to post the whole essay but unfortunately it is 720 words long, but can i please get some advice on this introduction??
Ring! Ring! Ring! It's five thirty! GET UP! Another day, but the usual routine, I fight a battle against myself to get out of bed. It was a cold and rainy morning, which made even sitting up difficult. I made my bed and went straight to the showers, the cold water dripping on my head slowly, woke me to my senses. I realized that day of the DYS Youth Summit, and my cast's "The Secret Garden" had finally come. I quickly got into the car and started the engine. The sun had not risen yet, and while the whole village was silent and asleep, I broke the silence with the roar of my t-100.
I got to the DYS Youth Summit just in time to practice and prepare my power point presentation on the effects of underage drinking, and in a few moments my fellow teen talkers would come with their presentations. Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours, and only half of the people who should have been there had come. Sensing panic, I tried to calm down and improvise. After thinking for a little while I divided all the teen talkers into 5 groups in order to handle registration, check on microphones, set walky talkies into the right channel, and to give out folders and pencils to the participants. Dividing the task made everything more organized and less hectic, problem solved.
Everything seemed to get better after that. The presentation on effects of underage drinking went great, and the participants were willing to try the activities I had planned. I thought the summit would end perfectly, but I found another problem. During lunch, I saw a catfight going on. I ran and tried to stop the fight. They apparently had a boy problem. I tried to calm them down. It was really hard, but it all worked out. After calmly talking about it, we all found it was a big misunderstanding.
After the DYS youth summit, I had a musical to perform at the stage located on the Pacific Island Club. "The Secret Garden" was a musical that was given to us to work on for only 2 months. I was truly worried when production day came. We had no time to practice our music with the pianist, and we had no idea we had to do it this early. Apparently Mr. Easton, our producer reserved the stage this early, because the adults were doing a Christmas, and a spring production, so "The Secret Garden: only had the month November to be staged, and to make matters worse our directors and co directors were inexperienced. Their blocking ideas were complicated, and could have misled the audiences' thoughts on where the actor was going, and what kind of character the actors portray.
As I have expected, the play was going through disasters. The veterans who were lead characters did great, however the supporting actors did not support us that well. There was only one way to fix this and it had to be done. We had to turn this serious piece of work into a comedy. Although it was evident that we were purposely changing our piece the audience seemed to like it, and the supporting actors didn't even need try on making it funny. Our producer was furious, but the audience loved our slapstick version of "The Secret Garden". Last problem of the day solved.
Throughout my life, I have always been a follower and a troublemaker. I always went through problems, and was too afraid to confront any of them. Looking back, I have never done anything like I have done on this day. This day truly was the turning point of my life, because it made me realize that I can be a leader and a problem solver.
720 is ok. Just put your whole passage here, I think moderators and other contributors like Liebe ^^ will give you useful suggestions on how to shorten your essay and on which part you should lay more emphasis.
BTW, the start is quite engaging. I want to know what happened next.
It was a cold and rainy morning, so it was even more difficult to leave my cozy bed behind. I made my bed and went straight to the showers, the cold water dripping on my head slowly, woke me to my senses. It was not a usual day, it was the day of the DYS Youth Summit, and my cast's "The Secret Garden". Since I was the facilitator of a workshop that day I quickly got into the car and started the engine. The sun had not risen yet, and while the whole village was silent and asleep, I broke the silence with the roar of my t-100.
Note how often you are using "was", and that frequently in the "it was" construction, one of the weakest you can employ. Try revising your essay to use stronger verbs:
Once you have gone through your essay tightening up the writing, post the entire draft for more feedback.
Ha, as usual, Sean said exactly what I was going to say. Fix those verbs, not only in the sample you posted but throughout the essay, and then post the whole thing here for feedback.
Your revised draft is stronger, though you begin relying heavily on forms of "to be" a bit too much again near the end. And Simone is right -- female readers might, and obviously will in at least some cases, take offense to your rather condescending description of the women you found fighting.
