I'm going to trim it a little so that I can add something to the end - not sure what, yet, but I think it needs some kind of powerful conclusion. The prompt is:
'You have already told us about yourself in the Common Application, with its list of activities, the Short Answer, and the Personal Essay. While we leave the topic of your second essay entirely up to you, try telling us something about yourself that you believe we cannot learn elsewhere in your application. Please limit yourself to fewer than 500 words.'
"What's that?" I asked, my ten-year-old face pressed against the car window. My mother glanced in her rearview mirror, did a double-take, and then, in her best Dale Earnhardt impression, yanked the steering wheel around into a U-turn and pulled over.
"Stay. Here."
I knew better than to ignore her when she unleashed the 'mom-voice,' so I rolled down the window of our toothpaste-colored Ford and craned my neck out, wondering what the massive black thing we'd stopped for was. It was just another of the oddities I'd come to expect on this trip. Newly arrived immigrants, we had decided it might be fun to explore our new country. We had been on the road about a week now, had made it to Georgia, and were working with so small a budget that we'd been sleeping in the car and eating Ritz crackers for three days. It didn't matter to us; this was an adventure, after all! The mysterious black object was all part of the expedition.
My mom was moving the thing towards the car. She opened the door to the back seat, and with a terrific scramble, it heaved itself in. I spun around in my seat, and found myself face-to-face with a huge, grinning pitbull - a pitbull that had been scalped.
Grimly, my mother rolled down her window in an effort to vanquish the overwhelming dog-stench from the car. I peered around at the dog again. He was lying down now, his bulk taking up every inch of the back seat. He was still grinning away, his floppy lips hanging clownishly from huge jaws. Seeing me, his colossal tail thumped feebly against the seat, and he wiggled his little ears. He didn't seem to notice the gaping wound on the top of his head, or the bare, scabbed over patches covering his thin body. He just smiled and smiled, and I couldn't help but smile, too. I fed him Ritz crackers all the way to the vet's.
By the time we arrived, I had named the dog Buddy, and insisted on cuddling with him while we waited, even though I would later have to throw out my clothes. When the vet saw him, she immediately knew what had happened - he'd been used as a target to train fighting dogs. When he had become too weak to stand, he'd been discarded by the side of the road. He also had horrendous mange, and probably hadn't eaten in days. Despite everything, the grin never left his face. Buddy sat bravely while he was prodded with various needles, given a bath, and patched up.
Buddy became the best road-trip companion we could have hoped for. He was happy with any destination, smiled his approval of any radio station, and was never happier than when he snuggled up to sleep in the backseat, grunting along with his dreams, grinning his way through the night. Having gone through what he had, Buddy could easily have been aggressive and distrustful, but instead, he was at peace. His unfailing happiness inspired me to view life in the same way - with a smile on my face, and the ability to enjoy the moments that matter. After all, those are the things we remember in the end.
*like I said, it's not just going to end there. It'll have some kind of powerful closing sentence about smiling even when you've hit rock-bottom. Anywho, it's due by midnight, so I thought I'd get some feedback thus far! Thanks so much!!!
'You have already told us about yourself in the Common Application, with its list of activities, the Short Answer, and the Personal Essay. While we leave the topic of your second essay entirely up to you, try telling us something about yourself that you believe we cannot learn elsewhere in your application. Please limit yourself to fewer than 500 words.'
"What's that?" I asked, my ten-year-old face pressed against the car window. My mother glanced in her rearview mirror, did a double-take, and then, in her best Dale Earnhardt impression, yanked the steering wheel around into a U-turn and pulled over.
"Stay. Here."
I knew better than to ignore her when she unleashed the 'mom-voice,' so I rolled down the window of our toothpaste-colored Ford and craned my neck out, wondering what the massive black thing we'd stopped for was. It was just another of the oddities I'd come to expect on this trip. Newly arrived immigrants, we had decided it might be fun to explore our new country. We had been on the road about a week now, had made it to Georgia, and were working with so small a budget that we'd been sleeping in the car and eating Ritz crackers for three days. It didn't matter to us; this was an adventure, after all! The mysterious black object was all part of the expedition.
My mom was moving the thing towards the car. She opened the door to the back seat, and with a terrific scramble, it heaved itself in. I spun around in my seat, and found myself face-to-face with a huge, grinning pitbull - a pitbull that had been scalped.
Grimly, my mother rolled down her window in an effort to vanquish the overwhelming dog-stench from the car. I peered around at the dog again. He was lying down now, his bulk taking up every inch of the back seat. He was still grinning away, his floppy lips hanging clownishly from huge jaws. Seeing me, his colossal tail thumped feebly against the seat, and he wiggled his little ears. He didn't seem to notice the gaping wound on the top of his head, or the bare, scabbed over patches covering his thin body. He just smiled and smiled, and I couldn't help but smile, too. I fed him Ritz crackers all the way to the vet's.
By the time we arrived, I had named the dog Buddy, and insisted on cuddling with him while we waited, even though I would later have to throw out my clothes. When the vet saw him, she immediately knew what had happened - he'd been used as a target to train fighting dogs. When he had become too weak to stand, he'd been discarded by the side of the road. He also had horrendous mange, and probably hadn't eaten in days. Despite everything, the grin never left his face. Buddy sat bravely while he was prodded with various needles, given a bath, and patched up.
Buddy became the best road-trip companion we could have hoped for. He was happy with any destination, smiled his approval of any radio station, and was never happier than when he snuggled up to sleep in the backseat, grunting along with his dreams, grinning his way through the night. Having gone through what he had, Buddy could easily have been aggressive and distrustful, but instead, he was at peace. His unfailing happiness inspired me to view life in the same way - with a smile on my face, and the ability to enjoy the moments that matter. After all, those are the things we remember in the end.
*like I said, it's not just going to end there. It'll have some kind of powerful closing sentence about smiling even when you've hit rock-bottom. Anywho, it's due by midnight, so I thought I'd get some feedback thus far! Thanks so much!!!
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