Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
"Happy birthday!" "Kol sana wenta tayeb!" "La mulți ani!" It took nearly 5 minutes for my parents to finish singing happy birthday to me in English, Arabic and Romanian. I took a deep breath, looked down at the flickering candles atop my cake, made a wish and blew. The heat of the candles left my face while the acrid scent of smoke entered my nostrils. My ears were absorbed by the many ambulance and police sirens constantly reverberating through the streets, yet the only object my eyes could focus on was the television. My mind was not present. I was continuously replaying the conversation I had with my father merely a week earlier, on the way back from being let out of school early, asking him if all the rumors of an upcoming revolution were true. He unpretentiously replied, "We will look back at this day and laugh!" But there we were, on the L-shaped couch in the center of my living room, witnessing the dramatic scenes of chaos in the streets of Cairo. We sat still, cake untouched with no words to describe how we felt. Egypt was the center of the world's attention.
I have lived in Egypt for the majority of my life, but I am not what one would call a typical Egyptian. I travel frequently, speak four languages, go to a international school and simply don't look like most of the people around me. I'm not saying that I'm an outsider, or that I don't fit in, in fact, over the years I managed to affiliate myself with multiple social groups in my community, Egyptian and foreigner. But that's not the point. The point is that most of the people that knew me thought that I would leave my home once the uprising began, which was the case for basically most of my friends. They assumed that a person living in a house with an Egyptian father, Romanian/American mother, Romanian grandparents and two Thai cats would be the first to leave when problems arise. That was the complete opposite of my intentions. Throughout my life in Egypt I did my best to improve the community I lived in by organizing a Charity that aids underprivileged people in need of medical treatment, cleaning the streets around my house and taking part in charity soccer games. I created an identity for myself that I couldn't just leave behind. Even during all the mayhem that was happening, my father and I spent long nights in the streets of our neighborhood protecting our houses from burglars. That was what my life consisted of, helping others. How can one just pack his bags and flee? To me that was hard to interpret.
Still, night after night, day after day, the fighting escalated leading to my school being closed for three weeks. For any teen, an extra three-week holiday would be something out of a dream, but for me it just created room for worries. I dreaded the day where I had to leave, the day that was slowly creeping up on my family. As a 13-year-old boy my biggest concern was choosing what to take with me if we were forced out of the country. Every morning I would stare at the 7ft tall bookshelf alongside my bed, filled with all my life's memories from signed soccer balls to family pictures, clearly remembering every memory. It was then that I realized that this curious piece of furniture was a reflection of my life and the only object that could define me. Every shelf acted as a new era of my past, a new piece to my life puzzle and a new memory. I would've never been able to choose one thing to keep, not until I have completed my journey, and my story. Luckily I didn't have to, that one wish in front of the T.V on the 28th of January added a new memory to my bookshelf.
"Happy birthday!" "Kol sana wenta tayeb!" "La mulți ani!" It took nearly 5 minutes for my parents to finish singing happy birthday to me in English, Arabic and Romanian. I took a deep breath, looked down at the flickering candles atop my cake, made a wish and blew. The heat of the candles left my face while the acrid scent of smoke entered my nostrils. My ears were absorbed by the many ambulance and police sirens constantly reverberating through the streets, yet the only object my eyes could focus on was the television. My mind was not present. I was continuously replaying the conversation I had with my father merely a week earlier, on the way back from being let out of school early, asking him if all the rumors of an upcoming revolution were true. He unpretentiously replied, "We will look back at this day and laugh!" But there we were, on the L-shaped couch in the center of my living room, witnessing the dramatic scenes of chaos in the streets of Cairo. We sat still, cake untouched with no words to describe how we felt. Egypt was the center of the world's attention.
I have lived in Egypt for the majority of my life, but I am not what one would call a typical Egyptian. I travel frequently, speak four languages, go to a international school and simply don't look like most of the people around me. I'm not saying that I'm an outsider, or that I don't fit in, in fact, over the years I managed to affiliate myself with multiple social groups in my community, Egyptian and foreigner. But that's not the point. The point is that most of the people that knew me thought that I would leave my home once the uprising began, which was the case for basically most of my friends. They assumed that a person living in a house with an Egyptian father, Romanian/American mother, Romanian grandparents and two Thai cats would be the first to leave when problems arise. That was the complete opposite of my intentions. Throughout my life in Egypt I did my best to improve the community I lived in by organizing a Charity that aids underprivileged people in need of medical treatment, cleaning the streets around my house and taking part in charity soccer games. I created an identity for myself that I couldn't just leave behind. Even during all the mayhem that was happening, my father and I spent long nights in the streets of our neighborhood protecting our houses from burglars. That was what my life consisted of, helping others. How can one just pack his bags and flee? To me that was hard to interpret.
Still, night after night, day after day, the fighting escalated leading to my school being closed for three weeks. For any teen, an extra three-week holiday would be something out of a dream, but for me it just created room for worries. I dreaded the day where I had to leave, the day that was slowly creeping up on my family. As a 13-year-old boy my biggest concern was choosing what to take with me if we were forced out of the country. Every morning I would stare at the 7ft tall bookshelf alongside my bed, filled with all my life's memories from signed soccer balls to family pictures, clearly remembering every memory. It was then that I realized that this curious piece of furniture was a reflection of my life and the only object that could define me. Every shelf acted as a new era of my past, a new piece to my life puzzle and a new memory. I would've never been able to choose one thing to keep, not until I have completed my journey, and my story. Luckily I didn't have to, that one wish in front of the T.V on the 28th of January added a new memory to my bookshelf.
