Emblazoned on our University Seal is a flaming heart which symbolizes St. Augustine's passionate search to know God and love others. What sets your heart on fire?
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My essay:
When I was a seven grader, every afternoon I led an army to conquer many kingdoms in my computer. One day when I nearly defeated my last enemy, a lightning struck my house. My computer screen turned black, and I sniffed a burnt-plastic odor from my computer case. In the next seven consecutive days I ceaselessly called the services to repair my computer; nonetheless, no one came to do the job.
During the jobless and raining afternoons, I regretted that I did not learn more about computer. If I knew well about it, I would fix my computer and enjoy my game. So when my computer returned to normal, I decided to learn the computer structure from 1:00 P.M to 1:30 P.M and then begin the usual conquest. However, I studied about computer hardware and software until my mother, threatening me with her long chopsticks, escorted me to the kitchen to have dinner. Since then, I spent all my free time on solving algorithms, designing themes for the operating systems, writing programs, and reading the research documents about computer science.
Half a year after the lightning struck my house, I became one of the administrators of ABCD.EFG (an Internet forum provided information, programs and technical supports for people using ABCD). As time went by, our forum became the most popular forum about ABCD in Vietnam. However, this forum, using a free host and free version of IPBoard, could not sustain the bandwidth and satisfy the demands of the large number of members. We needed to move our forum's data to a private host and build a new discussion board. As the one suggested this idea, I devoted all my time to this project. Everyday, in the morning, I came to school one hour earlier, mouth chewing the bread I bought near my school, hand writing the codes on the papers. Afternoon, I clung to my computer, testing the codes I wrote in the morning. Midnight, having finished homework, I discussed our new forum's functions and errors with other administrators.
I received no salary for my programming time (we used all the money we earned from our forum's advertisings to pay the host and domain fees). However, I never regretted, since I had many memorable moments while doing this project. I still remember my wrists went numb after coding for the entire night, my shoulders trembled when I came up with some new ideas, or my heart beat faster every time I run my codes. I still remember the first time I met other administrators. Going with my father in his business trip to Ho Chi Minh City, I burst out laughing when I arrived at Tan Son Nhat Airport. Wearing T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, the administrators waved a white board with my forum's nickname written on it. They took me around Ho Chi Minh City, and introduced many delicious foods and interesting places here to me. After that, we sat in the park opposite to Ben Thanh Market, and discussed our discussion board's "Thank You" function.
Now, although my first project sank into forgetfulness, my passion for computer science is still burning inside my heart, urging me to fulfill the dream I have been chasing for a long time.
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I appreciate all of your comments and advice.
