English is not my first language. So there will be many grammatical mistakes... any critiques welcomed!
1.There is a Quaker saying: "Let your life speak." Describe the environment in which you were raised-your family, home, neighborhood or community-and how it influenced the person you are today. (Required length is 200-250 words)
While dangling on a pine tree, I pointlessly stare at swaying leaves. As Taejin tells me to check "the tree", I jump off. Handful breezes cools off my skin. I check the elm which I applied honey last night, and spot a stag beetle holding onto it. I sneak behind it, and swoop it with bare hands. Its legs tickles my palm. With smile hung up in my face, I run to the cabin and show off my trophy to Taejin.
Taejin took care of me at his cabin for a year when I was 9 years old. First impressions? Shabby and underfed man who seldom spoke. However, it turned out he was one of most interesting person I've ever met. Taejin often asked me to sit aside him and gaze into random things like woods and rivers. Though they seemed pointless, when we gazed silently long enough, I could see and listen different things. I could feel the swirling winds.. I could hear squirrels dashing through branches. If I were lucky, I could notice the subtle differences between birds' cries. All the while, there existed pleasant silence between us.
Time flies like an arrow, and I now barely remembers his face. But what Taejin taught me still lies in me. I sometimes cease what I was doing, and listen to rustling leaves. I find beauty in silence and nature. I take a short pause as Taejin did, and look back on the time in the woods.
2. MOD comment:one topic at one time please
