Standing in the center of the dojang(the place to practice taekwondo) and dressing in my all white dobok(the uniform) and colored dhee(the belt), I am now a Taekwondoer.
The first time I went into this dojang, our instructor Mr. Zhan bowed to us and asked us to look around and remember those taekwondo spirits written on the wall. I didn't take it seriously, because I thought I was here just for some exercises. However, practicing taekwondo was much more than I thought it would be. During those days of January while people needed to sparkle salt on the road to prevent traffic accident, Zhan warned us not to wear anything else but our doboks, and shouted "Don't stop" hundreds of times after getting us run about 3 kilometers, when we were miserably tired and cold. However, I thought that was exercising and it could be beneficial. People always say the end of something is the beginning of another. Tugging our numb legs and frozen feet, we really began our taekwondo training. Despite the afterward sore muscles, the punching and kicking moves are nothing for us. But the stretching, lengthening ligaments, was much more challenging. Scream and cry haunted in our dojang everyday, and Zhan kept pushing our legs closer and closer to our faces.
Most students never showed up again after finishing a season's training and left their dhees white forever. But I stayed, because I wanted to take the rank test. While the dojang was silent and everything staying in that room was stiffly lonely, the squabby punching bag tasted my fists and splits, and the foamed plastic flooring almost had my foot prints on its face. I could see through the windows that the sky outside the dojang was withered and pale, but I was lively and fiery inside, like a flame. I screamed out loud when stretching, and laughed out loud every time I made some progress.
The test date came. On the center of the large flooring stood only the examiner and I. Two meters away from him, hardly could I do any moves wrong without being noticed. Silence overflowed, and the solemnity cut everything like a sharp blade. My epinephrine rushed and nervousness arose. It seemed the only thing existed in this room was my heart beat. I pushed really hard, probably beyond my capability, when I showed the stretching moves in front of the examiner. Finally his smile told me that I passed. My muscle was trembling and the pain inflated, but I kept at the position of stretching, and let the hurting be. Suddenly I found that I was addicted to this pain, this lasting but satiating and refreshing pain, which reminded me of all the solid effort of mine, all the exertion of Mr. Zhan's and all the hours that the bag was punched and the flooring was trampled. After a while, I stood up, bowed to the examiner and bowed to Mr. Zhan, gladly.
I do not only practice taekwondo while I am free, but only while I am practicing taekwondo, I am freed. I can explore and meditate. I found that I can be in high spirits even if every thing around me is gray; I found that I can get happiness even if I endure great pain; I also found that I can keep taekwondo spirits in heart even if doing it was not my original aim.
Standing in the center of the dojang and dressing in my all white dobok and colored dhee, I read those taekwondo spirits written on the wall sonorously: Courtesy. Integrity. Perseverance. Self-control. Indomitable spirit.
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any advice?
ahead of time, thank you guys! =]
Okay, look. You have part of the idea down: tell a cool story. it's interesting enough if tweaked the right way. I would suggest you find the editors of your newspaper [ask for features editor] to help you tweak this so it is even more of a cool cool story. This is features writing, a personal statement is a features article. Enough about me and newspaper and blagh blagh blagh. Okay, so my advice: Take out a LOT a LOT a LOT of your fluffy junk. You have a WHOLE lot of repeated or overly flowery descriptions. Take out one of the experiences like the training or test, and focus on one of them, or take out a bunch of the fluffy stuff on each one. What you need to do is use that extra word count that you just took out, and make it work. You tell a story, a fun one, but you COMPLETELY missed the most important part. EVALUATE. from this, who are you? Evaluate. The last sentence is what you need expand on so that it sounds more like that: your personality, your traits. What are you bringing to the school? You have these traits, great, what do you want to do with them? What do you want to do in college and after? How are the skills you mentioned going to get you there? Best of luck to (wherever you're applying.) Would you mind sharing? I'm curious :)
wow~thank you so much!!!
i'll revise. and i actually thought application essays need these "blahs"..
BTW, this essay's for wheaton college and MHC, it's an addtional essay in the place of Writing Sample, since i am not from an english speaking country. again, thanx!!! :D
Yeah, the personal statements need these blaghs, but they would like even more to see your analysis. That's cool though, then I'm not sure what your word limit is. Good luck!
