Common Application

"Please write an essay (250-500 words) on a topic of your choice or on one of the options listed below. This personal essay helps us become acquainted with you as a person and student, apart from courses, grades, test scores, and other objective data. It will also demonstrate your ability to organize your thoughts and express yourself."

   250-500 words. The fate of my future will be judged upon these words. Under a thousand words make or break my admittance into my dream school. Any admissions officer I've spoken with has told me that a really fantastic essay can set a college application apart from the others; it can even turn a denial into an acceptance. However, it goes both ways. A truly awful essay can deter the university from allowing you to attend their prestigious institution. 

   So, with this enormous amount of pressure weighing on the 500 words I choose to submit to the Common Application, I begin to go through my options. I could decide to use one of the topics provided by the Application itself. There are the typical prompts: explain a significant event in your life, discuss a person who has had a large influence over your life, etc. Seeing as I really don't know what the admissions offices are looking for, going off of one of the provided topics is a safe bet. It's safe, it's easy, it's...common. I want to do something new. Something these admissions officers haven't read a million times before.

   Deciding against the given topics, I'm left with one option: "Topic of Your Choice". While it sounds like I've narrowed it down, I've really done just the opposite. There are infinite possibilities. I could talk about anything. I could discuss how my sister's illness impacted my life early on, and inspired me to want to enter health care. Maybe I could write about how my privilege of travel opened my eyes to how different cultures of the rest of the world live besides my own. I could talk about how Swedish Fish are arguably the best movie theater candy there is if I wanted to.

    My mind swims with ideas. With no specific direction to take, my brain just shoots all over the place. I jump from topic to topic. I don't want my essay to be boring. I want it to be different...almost quirky. However, I can't have it be too weird, or controversial, or irreverent. Eventually, with all of this worry, and how much pressure weighs on this essay, I just get frustrated. What do I write about when I don't know what I'm trying to write about?

   My mom advised me to start with something I'm passionate about. She said that if I wrote about something I care about, something about which words will flow freely from my fingertips, that my passion and interest would come out in my writing. She said that's what makes a piece of writing come alive. Never underestimate the power of passion.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

     As I walk through the crowds of people, all clad in the team's signature colors, the excitement is palpable. A woman checks my ticket, and I'm officially allowed into the stadium. Then I find myself immersed in a world of souvenir and food stands, all things branded with the team's logo. My nostrils are infested by the smell of ball park hot dogs that aren't quite the same anywhere else in the world. Eventually, I manage to weave my way through the shops and to the darkness of the tunnel. I know what's before me, I know what's to come. I had seen pictures of Wrigley Field before. It had been shown in countless movies. But as I neared the light at the end of the tunnel, and the anticipation peaked, I could not have been prepared for what I was about to experience.
    The brilliant sunlight made the bright green of the baseball diamond absolutely blinding. The sight of the players, the enormity of the 50,000 person stadium, the smell of the field, it was all so overwhelming. Foam finger in hand, I took my seat, the players warmed up, the national anthem was sung, and it was time. Play ball!

    My dad decided that it was his right and his duty as a father to take each of his daughters to a Cubs baseball game at Wrigley Field at least once before we graduate high school. Last year, right before my older sister's graduation, my dad fulfilled this wish for her. Today, my time had come. I have never been one to appreciate sports. Yes, they can be fun, but if I'm flipping through channels on TV, I would never stop and watch a baseball game. I expected that I would somewhat enjoy this event, but eventually find myself keeping an eye on my watch out of boredom. I expected to make this a check off of my bucket list, and then never wanting to go back. I couldn't have been more wrong.
    There's nothing quite like going to the ball park, Wrigley Field at that, the ball park of all ball parks, with my dad, and experiencing the competition, the rush, the camaraderie of the sport. This game was extra special to me, because the Cubs were playing the Cincinnati Reds - the same team they played when my Dad saw his first Cubs game as a little boy. Back when he brought his own catcher's mitt, dreaming of catching a fowl ball. Before today, I had no special attachment to the Cubs, or baseball in general. However, whenever a player did something remotely good, I would find myself standing and cheering at the top of my lungs. At the seventh inning stretch, I knew I was hooked on the excitement of the game. As I stood with my dad, his arm around me, as we screamed the words to "Take Me Out To The Ball Game", Cracker Jack and peanuts in hand, I knew nothing could be more special between a father and a daughter.

Early Bird Special

           While I used to be an enormous night owl, morning has now become my absolute favorite time of the day. The few hours I have awake when the house is quiet are close to perfection. During the day, everything seems so fast paced and rushed, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But in my head, where everything always seems hustling and bustling, my few hours of quiet morning hour just seem to slow everything down a notch or two. Being up so early, it feels okay to do mindless tasks. I can move my hands slowly and methodically as I cut fruit for my breakfast, and in turn, my mind can slow a bit. I can take a breath, think about the little things, the big things, or think about nothing at all. It's such a release from my normally worried, anxious and busy mind.

            Since I've started being up so early, I have fallen into somewhat of a routine. I wake in my warm bed. When I realize that no more sleep will come to me, I reach for my phone and check my e-mail and Facebook, read my Twitter feed, explore Instagram updates, the important things in life. Then, I figure I've laid in bed enough, and it's time to retreat from my down comforter. So, pulling on baggy, oversized sweatshirt, my feet touch the ground and my day has begun.

            I take my first steps outside my room and into our front hallway and take a deep breath. The silence is beautiful, and I let myself take it in. I make the journey downstairs and open the refrigerator, pulling out sweet fruits of every color, shape, and size. My favorite knife in hand, I slice up strawberries, peaches, plums, bananas, anything. With a sprinkle of blueberries and raspberries, I pour yogurt on top, and breakfast is served.

            Now I sit. Maybe with some soft television in the background, maybe just basking in the silence. And I eat. I try to focus on being relaxed. I let this time be just for me. I don't have to worry about making anyone else happy or entertaining company. It's just me. I can read my book, browse the internet, or simply just eat.

            Once I'm fed, I fill up my waterbottle, and it's time to exercise. If it's a really nice morning, I'll go for a walk outside. But usually, I just take a walk in my climate controlled basement on our treadmill. I walk for a half hour, not an extreme workout or anything, but it wakes me up. It makes me feel ready for the day. It energizes me. It's more time in which I don't have to think, or worry, just be.

            By this time, I usually have another hour or two before the rest of my family is awake. Sometimes I'll go out and do errands, like grocery shop or go to the library. Other times, I'll work on cleaning different sections of my room. I strive to get rid of one garbage bag of junk out of my room every weekend. Maybe I'll use the quiet time to work on writing a blog entry like this one, or researching colleges, or just simply and mindlessly browse Pinterest for delicious sounding recipes or cute outfits.

            It doesn't really matter what I do with this time in the morning. What really matters to me is that it is my time. Don't get me wrong, I always look forward to when the rest of my family is awake too and I get to spend the day with them. There's just something about this early morning time though. It brings me into the day refreshed and relaxed. Before, when I went to bed, I would get a feeling of dread if I knew I had to wake up early. Now, I go to bed, and I think to myself "I get to wake up and have my lovely morning in just a few hours!" Call me elderly, boring, freaking insane, whatever. I'll just take it as a compliment and order the early bird special with a smile on my face.

Short Lived...

   "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." This is a saying repeated through cheesy novels and romantic comedies since the beginning of time. However, is it really true? Maybe it applies sometimes, but from all of the heartbreak I'm observing right now, it's hard to have much faith in the saying.
   Today started week three of a pre-medical institute at Washington University in St. Louis, the final week. Coming into the program, a group of thirty girls and guys are thrown together in a minimum security dorm, spending all day and all night with one another. I guess it should have been expected that bonds would be made and feelings would be developed. What I hadn't expected was that some of these feelings would be directed towards me. So, I had a decision to make. Do as the others in the program were doing and pursue a "relationship" that will meet an inevitable doom in three short weeks, or to not. Call me boring, too serious, a worrywart, whatever, I decided against it.
    I didn't see a big enough upside to the guaranteed sadness and pain that would ensue from creating any tight bonds with these people I'll more than likely never see again. Maybe that sounds cold hearted, maybe it is cold hearted. Three weeks just wouldn't be worth it to me. However, I was one of the very few in this program that felt that way. My prediction came true. Bonds were formed, feelings developed...to the point where almost no boys or girls were sleeping in their own beds.
   As one may assume, the second week was a romantic high for a lot of people here. There was a lot of hand holding, stolen kisses, relationship Facebook status alterations, the whole nine yards. But, anyone who's ridden a roller coaster knows that as exhilarating and wonderful as that high is, and as much as you may never want it to end, that high will eventually come crashing down. That brings us here. Week three.
   Realizations are beginning to come into focus. That inevitable end that once seemed so far off is now baring its ugly face. I went home for the weekend and relationships were at nauseating as could be. When I returned, loving gazes have turned to regretful glances. Holding hands affectionately is now desperately clinging to what they know is slipping away.
   Yes, the relationship high has indeed begun to plummet. Tears have already begun to flow in anticipation of the ride being over. So is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? Are all of these tears and heartache worth it? Who's to say? But when my friend - one shedding tears over soon leaving this program and consequentially her "boyfriend" who lives overseas - asked me for advice, I knew exactly what to say. We have one week left. A third of the program. She's going to face pain either way at this point, the ride will end, she's already had the high, there's no getting off now. But the ride isn't over yet. She has five more days to finish up the ride of her life. Would it have been better if she had never invested herself in this to begin with? Is it better to have loved and lost? Who's to say?

Finding Your Footing

   In any new situation, no matter how big or small the change, there's always a period of adjustment. Sometimes the change is for the better, sometimes for the better, but regardless of the circumstances, the adjustment is never very fun. Personally, I am currently in the midst of a very new situation to me. This change involves being four hundred miles away from my parents, my sister, my home. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I'm close with my family, and I've never been away from them for any extended period of time before, especially not away from them with no friends, acquaintances, just a lot of unfamiliar faces.
  This is all exciting, scary, fun, and lonely at first, all at the same time. Most of the other kids at this three week pre-medical program have been away from home several times before and treasure the freedom it entails. However, over the last week of adjusting to this new environment, I've been feeling the opposite. I love what I'm doing; learning about the medical field, dissecting brains and eyeballs, meeting new people, it's all a lot of great experiences. Most of the people are fantastic, and it's so interesting hearing about their lives and how differently people from different states and countries live. But, I can't help the occasional wave of homesickness that washes over me.
   Of course, I've been able to keep in contact with my parents and sisters via Skype and texting. I stay in touch with friends over frequent e-mails and such. But, I've had many moments during this program in which all I wanted to do was to be able to grab my mom or my dad and just give them the biggest, tightest, I-never-want-to-let-you-go-hugs EVER. It's already been a week, so you'd think I would be completely adjusted by now, but this is all just so new to me. I realize that I only have one more year left of high school, and then that's it. It'll be the college experience, but I'll be gone for good. No counting down the days until I get to go back to the safe and easy environment of my childhood home, because I'll have to make somewhere else my new home. And that's scaring the living daylights out of me.
   However, maybe the fact that I'm getting this experience, scariness and homesickness and all, is a really good thing. Maybe it'll make the transition when I go to college for good a lot smoother and expected. It'll be less of a thrown-into-the-deep-end-of-the-pool feeling, and more of a gradual wading into the water; letting my body acclimate to the pool temperature before allowing myself to be completely submerged. Not to say that it won't be difficult a year from now, and I'll be getting ready to move into a university that will become my home for at least four years of my life. It'll still be a challenge, and I'll still get homesick. But they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and this program is very far from killing me. In fact, I'm extraordinarily happy here about 75% of the time, and that percentage is slowly creeping its way upward. So I'm just hoping to come out of this program with a lot of great memories, interesting experiences, and a much stronger person.

Pin It!

    The topic of social networking has come up time and time again through school, newspapers, blogs, television, etc. There's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the list goes on and on. But in the last year or so, a new form of internet entertainment has emerged. I'm sure most of you have heard of the website Pinterest, but if you haven't, it's basically the ideal website for those of us who: A. ADORE being an extreme packrat and B. Enjoy procrastinating through browsing random internet articles and pictures.
    For those of you who don't know, on www.pinterest.com, you have "boards" on which you can "pin" random articles, pictures, ideas, sayings, really anything, that you would like to come back to. You can browse what other people pin, it's enough to keep me entertained for hours while I should be doing something more productive. Most of what I pin consists of either really amazing outfits I wish I owned, interesting ideas I had never thought of before, or recipes that look delicious beyond belief.
   I got to a point where I realized I was wasting WAY too much time on this website. While I found many articles extremely interesting, recipes to be enticing, and outfits to be dazzling, none of it was real. I could pin these things all I wanted, but in the end, it didn't amount to anything in the real world. So, I decided to make a compromise with myself. I would allow myself to go on Pinterest for a modest amount of time, as long as I actually DID the things that I pinned on the addicting website.
   So far, I've been pretty good about this compromise. Examples: I once pinned the fact that if you write a letter to your favorite Disney princess and send it to Walt Disney World Communications, you will receive a lovely post card back. My Cinderella post card now hangs proudly on my bulletin board. I also once pinned a recipe that looked far too beautiful and complicated for me to ever achieve for an Apple Braid. It involved braiding bread dough. But by golly, I did it, and it was delicious.
   Now that I actually take some of these virtual "pins" and put them into real-life actions, I feel so much more accomplished when I'm supposedly "wasting" time on the internet. Maybe it's just justifying wasting time, but hey, when the apple braid, lemon bars, cinnamon pull-apart bread, or WHATEVER you happen to "pin" tastes good, I say EAT IT!

Leaving The Nest

    This is the subject that has been floating around everyone my age's mind for the last few months. However, usually it's not an immediate worry for another year. I'm going to be a senior in high school next year, so this is the summer that's all about college visiting, thinking about applications, and coming to terms with the reality that you most likely will be leaving the comfort of your home and parents to stand on your own two feet. I just so happen to be lucky enough to get a little taste of this before I've even applied to a single university.
    Tomorrow I leave home behind for three weeks in order to explore the medical profession in a college setting. I'll be staying in a university dorm, eating the college food, going to lectures and labs from 9 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon. Three weeks on my own. Three weeks of no parents to answer to. Three weeks of making my own decisions and living my own life. While this is very exciting and I'm sure my pre-med program will be extraordinarily interesting and enlightening, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little scared.
    Some may say that three weeks is nothing. Lots of others my age go away for way longer than three weeks for summer camps, internships, and so on. However, I've never been away from my family for more than a week at a time, and even then, I was with my friends. This is the first time I'm going to be thrown into a completely new environment, not knowing anyone else, and hoping for the best. I'm glad I'm getting this experience now. This time, when my parents hug and kiss me goodbye and I feel a twinge of homesickness beginning to kick in, I'll be able to tell myself: "it's only for three weeks." Next time, it'll be at whatever college I decide to study at for my undergrad, and it won't be only for three weeks. It'll be for the year, and ultimately, the rest of my life.
    I'll miss my parents and sisters like crazy, but deep down, I know that this is good for me. New experiences, stepping outside my comfort zone, learning to be on my own, getting the roommate and dorm experience. I'm ready to embark on this adventure and have a wonderful time, but not without a few looks backward at the loving and comfortable home and family I'll be leaving behind.