I will really appreciate any help!!!!!
Prompt:Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.
"Why am I here?"
20 days before my first and last SAT2 Tests, stumbling onward the jungle in the Tibetan plateau, with six slippery leeches creeping on my arms, thighs and even head, I couldn't help asking myself.
To enjoy the amazing scenery? To conquer the nature? Or just to escape from sedulous studying?
Apparently not.
I had to be so careful not to fall on the rock, to swamp in the mud or to be washed away by the waterfall that I didn't really have a chance to appreciate the sublime views surrounded, which exhausted me and made studying in a comfortable house seem like a mercy comparably.
So, why am I here?
"Why do you insist on going now? What's to be gained?" I remembered my mother frowning when I told her my determination to go to Metok, the last county in China that does not have road access, right after reading a post written by two gappers looking for tour pals to Metok.
I remembered my answer, too. "I don't exactly know what I will gain but I'm sure the experience will be valuable." I looked into her eyes with a burning desire for Metok, which had long been inside me since I read a book about Metok and a seemly groundless though firm belief.
Ironically, the girl who had had such strong conviction could now see no meaning in this tiring journey. Trekking for 12 hours a day made both my body and minds numb. What else on earth did it give me except for physical pain?
Wondering about its value, I recollected every detail of my journey. I remembered us arguing over a math theory to distract ourselves from physical sufferings, discussing tens of ways of cooking leeches and getting rapturous when someone unexpectedly found a chocolate bar besides ship biscuit. "Well, at least we did have some fun." I thought with a vague smile.
Fun remained to be the only answer for what I had gained for two month, which made me kind of confused and rethink profoundly about my choice, until today when I watched an interview of Ang Lee, the first Asian descent to win the Best Director Oscar. When asked why he chose a tale so hard to shoot and the 3D form he was unfamiliar with, he smiled, " I like doing something I don't know how to do."
His words struck me.
I had never hiked for such a long way, scaled any jokul or trekked through a jungle. Although I had known the difficulties through the book, I didn't know how to get through them and I was still eager to try.
I felt some kind of relieved and mysteriously joyful; not because I had found a reason for my seemly meaningless choice but also because I felt like to some extent, I did understand Ang Lee and he would understand me, too.
Why must there be something to be gained? Or why must there be something you know you are to gain?
Looking back, I found my journey did bring me a lot more than simple joys: hailing for a trash indicating a path when lost in a jokul reminded me to awe the great nature and admit our limitations; trekking 38km on the bumpy mountain path a day taught me to be tenacious, which stimulated me to go through three books for SAT2, 1183 pages totally, in six days and believe in your potential... Most of all, eventually learning from the past experience illustrated the beauty of uncertainty and the meaning of experiencing without knowing what's to be gained.
It is true that my journey to Metok has given me great challenges both mentally and physically but only those who never experience would never get hurt.
Pain changes people; experience creates people.
"Why am I here?" The question recurred.
I'm here, ready to learn, to laugh, to cry, to set off and to EXPERIENCE.
IT's WONDERFUL! My only suggestion is to merge some of the paragraphs to become bigger, more substantive ones. cause it almost feels like every other sentence is its own paragraph. remember, paragraph is used to separate ideas. with connected ideas, i'd merge them together. it makes it much easier to read. really.
