I like silent, not superficially meaning of quiet, but the peaceful feeling through the body and heart. It makes me thinking carefully about my past, present, and future, and it also make me become sensitive and introspection. Travel is a way always can make me achieve that.
I am a poor traveler. I fully enjoyed every journey I had been travelled although sometimes the conditions were not so good. I like to go travelling alone in order to push myself into all kinds of unfamiliar places and try to overcome all possible challenges: get familiar with the environment, make some new friends, take photos of every corner, try to understand the unique of this place. I always can find some spots that are barely known by most of tourists since I started to seem like a local. There's no so-called travel. Although I did not live in a five-star hotel, sometimes even in youth hostel, did not go abroad to see the foreign island, I only need a pair of good sneaker then I can on my way. I learnt far more than the gorgeous views during the journey. What travel brings me is not only to discover geographically, but also mentally, and that's why I like go travelling.
The trip when I went to Yunnan Province. One thing that travel told me is to seek the peace and happiness even in dire peril. I risked my lives to go on a trip to Lugu Lake, which is the only place still adopted the matriarchal clan society in China. Seven hours shaky car drive, we finally safely arrived in this mystery island in the afternoon without any possible attacked from landslides. I lodged at the local's house which the room is simple and crude without any electricity at night. How can you enjoy a trip that without any electricity？I can. Ignored all the nameless insects, I played with those Mosuo people in bonfire party, hand in hand, danced and sang together. I spoke different dialect with them, but still could see their friendly and unsophisticated through their faces with little smile. Night falls, I went back to my place. On the road, I thought about the way our ancestor live in past, which is much more simple than that we live right now, but it seemed we are not that much happier than they do. Travel can give me space to look back my past and to hear my own voice inside.
Next day, I went to visit Mosuo's traditional house. There's a special room for the most powerful women in their clan. I wrote notes in my journals. Because the house is light-tight, the elder need to get the heat before the fire since there's a little chill in the room. I took a misty photo in the room: the little sunshine through the cracks of the tiles, smoke got mixed in the light. It reminded me what Alain de Bottom had written in <the art of travel>,"the sights we saw may have some special connection with what we may think in the same time". It seemed a little sunshine can light the whole room. I took a boat to the other islands in the lake, not for getting on the island, but the chance to stay awhile on the lake. I forgot the sunburn and thirst, forgot the muddy road, just embraced by the islands and immersed the clouds reflection in the lake.
I was fickleness and used to complain about life before I went on this trip. I was very sick at that time and needed to wear a brace during the whole journey. I has been dreamed for travelling in Austria to have a soul speak with Beethoven in Wiener Zentralfriedhof, travelling in Turkey to trace back to the ancient Greece, and travelling in Barcelona to caress every Gaudi's work. But I know, for a teenage girl, this journey is enough to revive her passion for life.
To live, to travel and to think, that's me.
To be honest, this is a school essay not a college essay. Both are very different, you must understand.
Right now, this is not a creative writing competition or something of that sort but a college entrance essay. This has to reflect your personality, your achievements and extra facts that your resume may or may not say. Along with that, you need to mention why you are pursuing the particular major you have applied for and so on...
My problem with this essay is that its a misfit. Why are you writing this to the college admission committee? What does it show about you or anything...?
There is no problem in writing something different... and you should write something different but it has to show something. Not just one aspect of your personality but many... they must feel your a great addition for the college campus.
Traveling and you may just be a page... in your personal diary or your autobiography, if you write that :) but not for admission essay. Be cool, natural and a little informal but never forget that this a competitive essay which is fighting for a seat with other applicants in thousands.
Hope this helps.... :)
