Hi! I have two versions for the commonapp main essay. V1 has already been submitted for Early applications, but i have a very strong feeling that I'm doomed for it, because it sounds like an antichrist or something. So, V2 is the adapted version, but still, i have a bad feeling and am eager to adapt/rewrite it. I'm an international student, so please point out my erred grammars. I know it's a lot to ask to read sooooo many words. So MUCH THANKS!!!! Please be as harsh as possible. Thanks again!
V1
The salvation of a cynic
"Hang her", ejaculated the cardinal, "for a cynic shall not be saved." Fear haunting me, I could feel sweats tap-dancing on my forehead, and the ever-so-bright sunlight illuminating my brown pupils. But no light, no warmth seemed to offer an ounce of solace to me, a faithless cynic: an unbeliever.
That's the nightmare I usually wake up from. Preferring believing in nothing to blindly following some religion, I thought truth would stand on my side by being skeptical to every theory, and judging things as objectively as possible. However, lacking a firm belief almost led me to be a nihilist---it was like the noose hanging around my neck.
Fortunately, my father knew me better. He encouraged me to embrace a reasonable belief. He told stories of my grandparents, the "soldiers" who fought valiantly in wars and struggled through the hardest time in the early days. Even on the brink of ruin, they believed life will be better and held fast to it.
"That's the charm of true belief. At some point, you'll believe in something."
True belief, what magical words! I didn't fully understand it until one day in the independent research I did last year. My true belief stroked right to my heart in a millisecond like a chemical reaction.
I studied system dynamics, using Conway's game of life as the medium. According to Conway's theory, cells propagate under influence of its defined neighborhood with a fixed set of rules. My task was to compile a concise dictionary for all the detectable patterns of propagation, stationary or oscillating, and to explore the possible utilities of cellular automatons in different fields.
The cells started off as some random dots on the computer screen, constituting a disturbingly disorderly jumble, at which anyone would frown. However, after thousands of generations, the seemingly unpleasant chaos was transformed into esthetical patterns. The whole process was like a holy parturition, with order being the child and chaos being the mother. The most exciting moment was when I beheld "order" surfacing from chaos. Patterns exist in even the most disorderly pandemonium! Stable structures like block and beehive, oscillators like beacon and blinker, and more complex structures like spaceships and guns were all waiting behind the curtain: the 70*70 grid I constructed for them, longing to surface. What else could I do but love them and appreciate them for their beauty and certainty?
I've become a fervent believer of existence of universal laws, the order, or, TRUTH. I believe that behind every "uncertainty" lies some unshakable "certainty", that if I don't know velocity of electron, I must be graced with the position of it.
The scene in my dream popped into my head again. Looking at the gallows, I could still feel the texture of the crude straws around my neck. But this time, I am free. I'd never felt so relieved, with every inch of my body stretching for warmth and sunlight.
I guess as a cynic, I am saved.
V2
I'm born in a family of believers.
My grandparents, soldiers who fought valiantly in the Anti-Japanese War, were adamantly convicted in the rise of a new China. My father, a doctor who deals with doses and chemicals every day, is a believer of science. My mother, diagnosed with optic trophy at the age of 22 and never got her original 5.0-eyesight back after the craniotomy, puts her faith in God to draw His strength.
Unlike my devoted families, I remained an atheist for almost 17 years, because I preferred believing in nothing at all to blindly following some religion. I thought truth would stand on my side by being skeptical to every theory, and judging things as objectively as possible.
But I underestimated the word "belief". It's the fountain of energy that doesn't include hazards of global warming of radioactivity. And I didn't fully understand it until one day in the independent research I did last year. My true belief stroked right to my heart in a millisecond like a chemical reaction.
I studied system dynamics, using Conway's game of life as the medium. According to Conway's theory, cells propagate under influence of its defined neighborhood with a fixed set of rules. My task was to compile a concise dictionary for all the detectable patterns of propagation, stationary or oscillating, and to explore the possible utilities of cellular automatons in different fields.
The cells started off as some random dots on the computer screen, constituting a disturbingly disorderly jumble, at which anyone would frown. However, after thousands of generations, the seemingly unpleasant chaos was transformed into esthetical patterns. The whole process was like a holy parturition, with order being the child and chaos being the mother. The most exciting moment was when I beheld "order" surfacing from chaos. Patterns exist in even the most disorderly pandemonium! Stable structures like block and beehive, oscillators like beacon and blinker, and more complex structures like spaceships and guns were all waiting behind the curtain: the 70*70 grid I constructed for them, longing to surface. What else could I do but love them and appreciate them for their beauty and certainty?
I've become a fervent believer of existence of universal laws, the order, or, TRUTH. I believe that behind every "uncertainty" lies some unshakable "certainty", that if I don't know velocity of electron, I must be graced with the position of it.
Like the disorderly cells presented in Conway's Game of Life, many things in our life are presented in a state of chaos because low entropy is the nature's way of ruling. But while I'm writing a program, I have the order in my mind. And with that order, no matter how complicated the problem is, whether it is finding all the prime numbers within 10000, or enabling a model rocket to lift off, I know I can get the result I want. The algorithms are my "order"-- they are where my faith lay. That's one of my many reasons for my love of computer engineering.
And the same rule applies to robotics. As the main programmer and the leader of my VEX robotics team, I have to solve more practical problems than just dots on screen with my computer programming skills. The problems in need of solutions can vary from a nonfunctioning "limit" (a kind of sensor), to the whole robot going rogue. Deep in my belief that there's always order underneath those real-life chaos, I manage to solve the problems with terse algorithms, the order that I believe in.
Originally, I thought beliefs were for the infirm ones who would wallow in the mud of misery, waiting for salvations from others' conceptions and expecting to draw strengths from a community, or for the indolent ones who were not industrious enough to explore their own life philosophies. But now I have my own belief, my faith in Truth. I will happily serve Truth my whole life and dedicate what little strength I have to the course of science.
