i need help on grammar and structure of my essay. and also is my essay kind of offtopic, because i feel that i didn't strengthen my point enough and i didn't answer it directly.i hope anyone can help me with my essay.THANKS!
prompt1, Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?
I had always thought that I was born the most unfortunate kid in the world. Looking into the mirror, I could always see how ugly I look. My face was divided into two different parts, on the left side had normal yellowish color, but on the right side was the notorious dark brown birthmark, in the most noticeable are of my body when I was born. Starting from elementary school, I always felt frightened going into new environments and meeting new people; because I knew they would stare at me in curiosity, wondering what was that on my face. Lacking the confidence to talk with people, I was always quiet and alone. By isolating myself from the world, I was trying to protect myself; I didn't want to hear any negative comment that could hurt my feeling. Without any unnecessary social interaction, I thought I could live like this safely for life, but things do come unexpected.
It was one day in the seventh grade after school, I was sitting in my desk playing around with my pencil. Suddenly, I heard a boy in my class talking angrily but justly to his father, "Dad, that ugly girl, she must had stolen my pencil!" Then the boy and his dad walked to me, his dad asked me with authority, "why did you steal my son's pencil?" although I wanted to shout out that I didn't do it, I didn't even know to his son, but I kept my head down without speaking a word. I knew the danger of being silent meant admitting, but at times like that, I couldn't even look straight into the eyes of people in my age, how could I retort to an adult that was so sure about what I didn't do. The boy grabbed the pencil that I was playing with and left with his father. I forced back my tear, I don't want my parents to worry about me, I don't want them to feel bad about me and my weakness.
I hided in the restroom and cried as soon as I got home. I realized I cried not because of the boy accused me for doing something because of my outlook, but because of my extreme weakness of not even able to defense myself. I can't even speak up and told them that I didn't steal his pencil. My weakness had made me live in constant unhappiness, made me assumed that I can't live any other life because of my outlook. I realized the assumption that I was supposed to be weak had made me live in the dark all these years. It was that day that I felt my eagerness to be strong deep inside my heart, my urge to look people straight in to their eyes and talk with them like friends, and I felt my readiness to make changes to my life.
Years later, I got a surgery on my face, which lightened the color of my birthmark. When I looked at the mirror today, I had never regret that God had decided to mark me as His special child, I knew that all these years of being weak and the incident of being wrongly accused had been one lifelong experience for me, they taught me how to be a strong and confident girl.
prompt2-Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
For the first fourteen years of my life, I resided in a city named Guang Zhou in China. This was the place where I was born, went to school, and grew up with my friends and family. It was a peaceful city--we all lived a normal and quiet life. No one would have expected that a devastating and terrifying biological disaster would hit our city in 2003, the year when SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), a new type of deadly communicable virus spread throughout the whole Guang Zhou area.
The fear of being infected by the pestilent disease was in everyone's mind. People wore face masks when they are in public; us students were required to have our temperature checked every time we entered a classroom; and herbal medicine which were said can cure SARS became the must buy item for every family. Despite the precautions we took, more and more people were sent to the hospitals with the same suspected SARS symptoms everyday. In March 25, a nurse named Yan Yip first died from this incident. I was shocked and terrified, because I could feel that people were dying around me, and how close I was to death, I could be the one dying anytime.
However, these fears weren't and couldn't be seen on the doctors' and nurses' faces. They were our source of confidence and hope--they stood on front line of the SARS battle and they knew they had to be strong for the people's sake. After a simple meal with their dearest families and friends, both doctors and nurses alike had to pack their clothing and rush to the hospitals to resume their work, and more, they volunteered to fight with death. These doctors and nurses live in the hospital for months, quarantined from the rest of society because they couldn't risk of letting their families get infected. Although they wore masks and protective gowns when interacting with patients, half of the nurses were infected by the disease and became patients themselves. Many of them died soon after, but those that got better continued to work, putting their patients' wellbeing before their own. In the end, 56 people in my community died.
It has been five years since the first outbreak of SARS in Asia, but the fears and events are still fresh in my mind. I could remember that it was the sacrifice of the doctors and nurses that saved our community. They were ordinary people who I might ride the bus with everyday but were also extraordinary people willing to sacrifice their own health and future to save complete strangers--strangers that might have been me or someone close to me.
Their actions change how I view the world. I used to think people are selfish self-centered, but they make realized that the world is full of love and care. From that point on, I felt a great urge to go into the medical field because I want to be the one to give patients confident and warmth. I want to contribute more to the sick, and no matter what happen, I will always put them on the first place, because we are their main source of confidence and hope.
