Vocabulary Word

College Essay Draft

What intrigues you? Tell us about one work of art, scientific achievement, piece of literature, method of communication, or place in the world (a film, book, performance, website, event, location, etc.) and explain it's significance to you. 

When I was younger, everyone around me had an interest in the written language. I grew up around books, around stories, around rhymes. My grandmother, especially, had been the one to spark my love for literature. One of her nursery rhymes that remain in my memory to this day was the poem of the crooked man.

“There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.

He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.”

“Nana?” I had asked her, bursting with curiosity. “How can a man be crooked?” All I could picture in my mind was a hunchbacked fellow.

Her exact answer I can’t recall, but I know it had something to do with telling me that the man was not crooked in looks, as I was under the impression of. His personality was crooked, and that had left me absolutely bewildered for the longest time.

The question as to how a crooked personality could be possible remained in the back of my mind after that.  It wasn’t until I came across the poem “As I Walked Out One Evening” by WH Auden, however, that I truly was able to interpret the meaning of it. In the closing of that poem, Auden used the line “You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart.” There it was again. A crooked neighbor, and now my heart was lopsided along with it.

Then the idea struck my mind like lightning, and I saw the meaning of both Auden’s poem and the nursery rhyme my grandmother always used to read me as if it were presented right in front of me.

The crooked person represents a human being, who can appear as a conventional as can be when seen from the outside. But the word “crooked” tells of their imperfections.

Everyone has some faults in his or her lives. Knowing that, we still should all love each other just the same. And that’s what both these poems are trying to get across. Whether it is your friends, or your family, or some celebrities you’ve only read about or seen on TV, they’re all not perfect because the standard of perfection is undoubtedly unreachable. And we’re in acceptance of this.

Maybe the poems are trying to teach us about forgiveness, too. If all of the crooked characters in the nursery rhyme can live in peace knowing each other’s faults and weaknesses but disregarding them all, than humans shall too.

I apply this concept of necessary forgiveness to the life I have, mainly in my family. Experiences faced in previous years have brought upon a lot of rough times for us. Considering we were both stubborn as nails, my mother and I can hardly compromise on anything. There has been weeks where my mother and father went without speaking to each other.  I’ve honestly gathered my money and clothes and packed up to get away at one point when things were particularly bad.

But then I remembered that I couldn’t just turn my back on everyone, and that sometimes I needed to forgive. My mother and I forgave each other for not seeing eye to eye all the time. My father and mother forgave each other for not always being respectful and sometimes ignoring the fact that they were in love. My family that I used to feel like I had to walk on eggshells around in order to not set off the bomb that would cause everyone to go crazy and fight, forgave each other for everything. We realize we’re not all idea, and we’ll never be, but the only thing we can do is forgive and accept.

I see the faults in everyone around me, and I’m sure they see mines too. But we have pure compassion for each other. All of us imperfect people will continue to love our crooked neighbors with all our crooked hearts. And the thought of that, will always be intriguing.   

Word Choice Graphic

The sky was almost entirely covered in fluffy white clouds. To the left was a broad dark rock, almost 25 feet in height. People crouched on the top of the rock, waiting and watching expectantly, as a boy with red printed swim shorts jumped off. He was about half way to the crystal clear teal water. His arms flew back from the impact of the wind and gravity both.

College

The main school that I'm currently looking at would be New York Universities' College of Arts & Science, specifically the Journalism Institute.

http://journalism.nyu.edu/

What intrigues you? Tell us about one work of art, scientific achievement, piece of literature, method of communication, or place in the world (a film, book, performance, website, event, location, etc.) and explain it's significance to you. 


Other schools:
- Missouri School of Journalism http://journalism.missouri.edu/
- Columbia University School of the Arts for writing http://arts.columbia.edu/writing
- Princeton University for Creative Writing http://www.princeton.edu/main/

Coming of Age Poster Draft

Coming of Age Essay Rough Draft

The person that graduated from the middle school in the summer of 2011 and the person sitting here writing this essay today might as well be two completely different people. The first was a shy, introverted girl. She didn’t yet know what she wanted her future to consist of, and to say she didn’t open up to people was an understatement. Her changes into a girl who was still small in height but huge in spirit could be a result of many different life experiences and challenges she faced in that 1 ½ years. However, the main one had to be that 2011 summer before freshman year. That’s the summer I joined the Moanalua High School cheerleading program. Despite the negative connotations associated with the sport itself and the people who play it, cheerleading was the thing that truly sparked my coming of age.

            Bland would be the one word I would use to describe my life before cheerleading had made its impact. I tried a lot of things, from ballet to soccer, but none had yet captured my absolute interest. Believe it or not, my teachers would actually tell me that I needed to speak up more in class. I’m a huge dreamer now, but I don’t think I was even half that back in middle school and before. The future seemed like a vast unknown to me, something in which I had no plans for.

            I exited middle school still waiting for the shift.  Back then, I didn’t known what that shift was exactly or what would bring it about. I just knew that there was some kind of bigger plans in store for me, and I had to really go out and search for them.

            It was a spontaneous decision to join cheerleading, to be honest. I wasn’t looking for a shift. I think I was just set out to find a new hobby to distract me from my dull every day life. That first day of tryouts will be forever etched in my memory, reminding me of the changing point between my personality then and now.  The nerves had really taken over me, and I was practically shaking. But then they called my name and told me I had made the team. The state of shock I was in was indescribable. It wasn’t the same as accomplishing anything before. This was different. This had meant something to me.

            My first season of cheerleading had changed me a lot. For starters, I used to be practically one of the laziest people you would ever know. The amount of time I spent parked in front of computer screen or TV was higher than I would’ve liked. Cheerleading changed that. Cheerleading taught me to dream.  From day one as I watched varsity hit every motion precisely, throw girls up into the air and catch them solidly as they twirled down, and perform inverted jumps like it was simple, I learned goal setting. My ambition had sparked that summer, and that’s something that I carried with me every day after that. Not just in cheer, but in the real world as well. Now, I know exactly where I want to go in life and what steps I need to take in order to get there. The dreams in my head about my career as such are as big as my dreams when I step on the cheer mat.

            One of the lines in the competition cheer last year was simply “Do work, commit, we strive for the best. Through pain and stress we will conquer the rest.” This is something I really live by. Becoming a cheerleader is much more than just wearing the uniform and putting on a peppy smile at football games. It’s much more than the big bows and curly hair. It’s much more than it’s negative stereotypes. Becoming a cheerleading taught me commitment, determination, pride, and perseverance, all things that again is carried on with me through my normal everyday life. This especially comes into play with school. I don’t allow myself to give up without a fight anymore. If I want something, I’ll put in all the work necessary to get it. It’s something I really pride myself with having, because of the things I’ve accomplished.

            I’m stronger now, because of cheer. People stereotyped me from the very beginning. They tell me all cheerleaders are the same. They tell me I’m supposed to be dumb, supposed to be a flirt, supposed to be an airhead. But I’ve learned to not let criticism and other peoples’ negative words bring me down. People can disrespect me, but they won’t break me down. Before, I used to get my feelings hurt at the slightest of things, and that all changed after I started cheer.

            So, I’m sitting here, writing this essay, and reflecting about how something as simple as joining a sport could change my life completely. I’m blessed for the opportunity that was given to me when I made the team. That was the shift in my life that I had needed. It made me the person I am today, a girl who doesn’t give up, and chases her dreams. Forever changed, forever greatful. 

Blog Revisions

To show the changes that happened within the last year, I drastically changed my blog. My header and title is different, now being named "Reflected imagination" which is really what my writing is, my imaginations reflected into letters and words. In my header, I used a lot of galaxy and city light pictures, to match my description. "If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough." is the quote in my description and I think it matches perfectly because my biggest dream is to live in a big city one day with a career I love, and because everyone always told me to "reach for the stars." I also changed my background to a picture of a collection of books, and that's something I dream to have in my future house one day to fuel my love for reading. All in all, I think this new blog perfectly represents who I am now in my life rather than who I was a year ago when we first started MeneMac.