Supplement Essay for UVA - What is your quirk?

We are a community with quirks, both in language and in traditions. Describe one of your quirks and why it is part of who you are.

Need help proofreading and editing this 250 word essay for UVA. Any criticism is welcome!

addicted to soy sauce with white rice

My favorite dish is soy sauce with white rice. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I have it at least three times a week for lunch, dinner and sometimes as a snack right after I come home from school.
When I was five, I would find myself downing spoonfuls of soy sauce covered rice at the dinner table before being scolded by my mother telling me to add some meat and vegetables onto my bowl. In school, I would take out anything that wasn't rice from my Thermos and eat the rice by itself(made even better if it had soy sauce). Because of my strange addiction, my friends and family would always tease me, claiming that my taste buds hadn't matured yet, but I enjoyed the dish too much to care about what they thought.

Before high school, my favorite part of the dish was its taste. I loved how the salty, umami taste of the soy sauce blended in perfectly with the soft, grainy texture of the rice; the way the two ingredients effortlessly combined together without compromising each other's strengths. But now, I admire it for something else: its simplicity. Soy sauce with rice adds an element of austerity and predictability into my increasingly complex and volatile life. It is a constant standing out within an ocean of variables. My senior year has provided me with many uncertainties: college applications, AP exams, and strains on friendships. These will all come to change different parts of my identity, but one thing will never change: my love for soy sauce with white rice.

Vinh, you are over describing your relationship with rice covered in soy sauce. The first paragraph should have been enough to describe why you like the dish and what you consider unique about it. You could remove the reference to your taste-buds not maturing yet and you not caring about what they thought. It unnecessarily lengthens the description of your quirk.

The second paragraph should focus mostly on how this food favorite of yours has helped you understand how two highly different flavor profiles can come together to create an interesting dish that "does not compromise each other's strengths". Use that thought to explain how you often being something unique to the table that helps to strengthen a friend's weakness or compliment a schoolmates weakness. This is part of who you are based upon this dish and this is something that will help to increase the diversity of the university campus.

As an essay draft, this is a good piece of work. You need to make only minor revisions to create the final version. I would say that you did a good job on this piece.

Thank you, Holt! I will continue to revise the essay with your feedback in mind!