<p>@thisisokay so you don’t think that they’ll mind if the essay says nothing about the writing it other than their writing skills and creativity? I’ve always been told otherwise but I get what you mean. And this is a little unrelated but how long of an essay do you think is appropriate? Mine is a little over 500 words but the majority of the essays posted on here seem to be closer to 1000.</p>
<p>Guys, I wouldn’t worry about your essays. Even if you took a largely philosophical approach to your extended essay (which I did), admissions can tell a lot about you from seeing the way you think. If you look at the past essays, you’ll see that many are fundamentally philosophical in nature and don’t use the words “I” or “me”. Many of these people were accepted.</p>
<p>While it’s not superb, here’s what I wrote for the “So where is Waldo, really?” essay: </p>
<p>What do the rising stock market, a game of hide-and-go-seek, and dreams all have in common? Theyre ephemeral. Mere reflections upon a blackened tarn that rests before a rotting house. As Poe consistently proves, most things do not last. Families eventually fall, and their homes crack at the foundations. One lick of catastrophes poisonous tongue curdles the lifeblood of even the most secure and prosperous human beings. The GDP crumbles, and a man weeps at the foreclosure sign on his dried lawn as he goes to pawn his high school class ring. A child yelps, his secret spot uncovered by his best friend. I awaken from a sweet reverie of clouds and brisk winter winds to a nightmare, where a bead of sweat drips down my forehead as the racket of the neighbors screaming at one another echoes throughout the apartment. While none of this sounds reminiscent of the seemingly happy wanderer we know as Waldo, it isnt difficult to see past what may be a facade commonly unthought of. You chew on your lip, staring helplessly down into that colorful book, where tourists stream across Parisian streets and that man in the red striped shirt caches away. All you want is for him to be in the last spot you looked, and you grow impatient, his lack of existence fueling your desire to find him. The game goes from ten minutes to an hour. That little devil tricks you into becoming a victim of his favorite pastime, aside from stopping at every gift shop. He lures you to the deadly sin, greed.</p>
<p>The building anticipation begins to fill you with a rampant need. For a guy with a few too many carry-ons, he shouldnt be this difficult to find. Just as you run your finger line by invisible line across the city, something occurs to you: maybe hes not here at all, lets try the next page. The enigma here is that he is on every page, and just short of you taking to pen and paper to draw in your own Waldo, you continue on your pursuit to fill the empty void left by the missing man in the prior example. Just as the toddler rages in defeat on the playground, the man regrets his unruly gambling problem, and I ponder why I bothered dreaming at all, the absence of Waldo leaves a residual stain over what is realistically obtainable without consequence, leaving our wants in tact without reason. </p>
<p>Lets say you do give in to the lecherous ink of a ballpoint pen and scribble a mini-man amidst the chaos upon the paper. While you have satisfied the burning side-effect of obsession, youve ruined a car repair shops copy of the book, and as the owner catches you vandalizing the buffer he bought to keep customers kids quiet, you have to buy him a new one. You made yourself a Waldo, the cessation to your withdrawal, and in turn are three dollars away from what could have been your lunch. But, how does this answer where Americas little traveler is? </p>
<p>Thats the thing. Waldo resides everywhere, whether you wish him to be or not. From page to page, he doesnt leave Wittenburg to fly to Rome, instead he remains in both places. Whos to say that he isnt beside you? Now, if you were to look for him, he would dissipate. If he stays because you want him to, that would defeat the purpose, the overwhelming pleasure that comes with searching, and in the end, with finding. In reality, if you were truly this intent on having your desires handed to you, youd be hopelessly turning in a circle for the rest of your life, while those around you pass by, slightly terrified by the lunatic who cant seem to grasp that what he wants isnt possible. </p>
<p>However, what is the true meaning of this? A link. Ephemeral meets perpetual whereas ceteris paribus remains the law of the land, with Waldo as the king. The second-long fulfillment of discovering him fades quickly, only to pull the next lever, initiate the following pulley, and start the never-ending process of demand, addiction, and of greed. Next time that youre so annoyed with his antics that you quit his game, think about how fortunate you really are.</p>
<hr>
<p>Of course when I look back at it now, there are a million things I’d want to change, elaborate, and expand on–but hey, can’t do anything about it now. My chances of getting into UChicago aren’t very good, but at least the prompt was fun to write about: I can’t say that about the other places I applied to. It’s nice that this university puts a creative spin on their applications.</p>
<p>As a follow-up to the folks asking me to review their essays: as I said before, I’m not an admissions counselor or anything like that, so please, take anything I say with a grain of salt. I just write marketing material in volume now, I wrote my way through UChicago, and I’m guessing my essays played a solid role in getting me in, for several reasons. I saw a couple of y’all struggling (and doing well also!) and simply wanted to chime in.</p>
<p>Anyway, I swear to God, UChicago is <em>strongly</em> looking for fit, which means the essays play an especially important role. Don’t get me wrong – your academics are still the most crucial part, and if they get someone with a 2400 SAT Is, 800 on all their SAT IIs, 5s on a bunch of APs, a 4.0 unweighted, but marginal essays and marginal extracurriculars, he or she is still very likely to be accepted.</p>
<p>But “fit” brings the low end of scores/GPA that admissions is willing to admit down further than you might think. Despite its academics, UChicago spent a long time as a Harvard “safety school” with self-selecting applicants and a pretty low matriculation rate. That number has climbed a lot in recent years. I’m sure some of it has to do with people seeing UChicago as a more competitive school now (despite the fact that the profile of accepted students has remained relatively constant), but it also has to do with admissions’ emphasis on accepting people who seem more likely to come. UChicago students are a very specific breed.</p>
<p>People often forget that your essays serve a double function. First (and more importantly), you’re showing admissions what kind of person you are. But you’re also demonstrating how well you can write, and how well you can answer what’s being asked of you. For example – and I assure you, there was absolutely, positively no “right” way to write the Waldo essay – I personally saw the Waldo essay as an opportunity to show some very funny, creative, well-researched critical thinking, and to be specific. A cool approach might have been to go the library, borrow all the Waldo books, spend an hour or two finding as many Waldos as you could, and to see what you noticed, or what inspiration hit you. To the best of my recollection, Waldo is always surrounded by hundreds of people (or other living things). He’s never peeking out at you from under a rock – he hides in plain sight. He’s been deep-sea diving, he’s time traveled, he’s been in the middle of castle sieges, medieval warfare, pirate battles and giant food fights. He’s even been in a white-walled warehouse full of other Waldos. He’s almost always smiling, and he’s (almost?) always wearing that damn striped hat, blue jeans and striped shirt. He even has striped socks. </p>
<p>What does that add up to? Beats me. And hey, if that approach doesn’t get you in, now you know where Waldo is. :-)</p>
<p>No matter what your major, the core curriculum means that you’re going to be doing a LOT of academic essay writing. If you’re a bad writer, it’s really no offense – you’re just going to struggle at UChicago. Struggling is not fun.</p>
<p>Anyway, don’t stress out too much about the essay. The “holy grail” of your application is your academic history, and at a certain point, no essay will make up for it. But at a time when y’all have super-fantastic scores, kick-ass grades, and some pretty neat extracurriculars, using your writing to differentiate yourself is more important than ever (for other colleges too). I’d encourage you all to consider that, going forward.</p>
<p>@ravenish It needs work.</p>
<p>This is the only one of my essays I feel comfortable sharing. It’s the optional favorite things essay. Please don’t be too harsh. </p>
<p>Every year when classes begin, I face the same conundrum. Teachers pass out information sheets, what they like to call “Get to Know You” sheets. It begins smoothly, with your Name, Address, Etc. Yet inevitably, there comes the favorites section, ranging from one to many items, from food to music. Someone like me always dreads the appearance of this section. With five favorite foods, three favorite books, and no favorite song, this section is obviously slightly difficult for me to fill out. The one thing I do have a favorite in never seems to be listed in the section. Likely because many people don’t go through the trouble of deciding a favorite word.</p>
<p>Serendipity: an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. To look at the reasoning behind my decision, we can dissect the word. Se-ren-dip-it-y, with so many vowels, is, at the basis, simply a fun word to say (try it), much like Uruguay, discombobulate, or anemone. It is also on the list of the most untranslatable words in the world. Other countries, while knowing that serendipity exists and is prevalent, don’t even have a word for it. The beauty of it is that it doesn’t necessarily need a word. The concept still exists behind the word. What person has never found a stray dollar, or has never used penicillin- the discovery of which was serendipitous? The idea of things still existing even when words don’t exist to describe it links countries together, because while one person may not know the word for something in another language, they still can describe it, overall achieving the same result as the word would have.</p>
<p>Yet the real reason why Serendipity is my favorite word lies in the meaning of it. What could be more beautiful than a fortunate accident? Something that, originally, had no business happening, yet that ended up being beneficial. The formation of Earth is seen by some scientists as serendipitous. Marking the wrong answer on a test, yet ultimately getting it correct is also serendipitous. The small things that, put together, had the potential to turn out very badly, but didn’t. The idea of serendipity working in our lives everyday enthralls me, knowing that, while some accidents turn out badly, there will always be the serendipitous ones to keep the balance.</p>
<p>@nebraskagal I love your essay! I always had the “get to know you” questionnaire problem too! I think it’s really creative to write about a favorite word 
my favorite is nostalgia</p>
<p>@nebraskagal: Nice essay! I always try and be witty on those Get to Know You sheets, which usually works nicely but has backfired before haha. </p>
<p>My essay for this prompt was a lot more straightforward; I basically just listed all of my favorite written works (e.g. Feynman, Prose and Poetic Eddas, MMWR), music (e.g. Daft Punk, Iron Maiden, Wagner), movies (Black Dynamite, Raid:Redemption, 2001: A Space Odyssey), and games (Pokemon, Catan, Twilight Imperium.) There were a couple commentary sentences in there, but mostly I wrote exactly to what the prompt asked 
I was pretty tired of writing what I felt like grandiloquent and circumlocutious essays.</p>
<p>Oh trust me I know. Luckily my uchicago app was the first one I did but by now my thesaurus has been thoroughly exhausted. Thanks everyone :)</p>
<p>Charming essay, nebraskagal. If you’re actually from Nebraska, that may help you too. Good luck!</p>
<p>I am from Nebraska. That could help?</p>
<p>Okay guys, I did the Waldo essay, and I’m freaking out about the decisions coming out. I think this essay was the weakest part of my application. I started it, and then I just couldn’t figure out how to make it good, but it was too late to start a new essay, so I just powered through it, and then I did a last minute edit that I didn’t proofread to see if it made sense, and I left out an important part and it’s basically a disaster. Tell me what you think:</p>
<p>So Where Is Waldo, Really?</p>
<p>“There it is, men,” Standish said in hushed tones. I peered through the darkness, down the line of his outstretched arm, past his gloved finger, and through the light snowfall to see a small cabin in the valley below. A solid mass of gray obscured the stars above, promising stronger snowfall in the later hours of the night. “You all know what to do,” he continued, gazing at each of us in turn. As his eyes locked on mine, his brow furrowed momentarily, and I noticed a hot flash of anger in his eyes. “Take point, Lockhart.” I hesitated momentarily, flashing a glance toward Renner, who was supposed to be taking lead on this operation. Our eyes met momentarily before he guiltily shifted his gaze to the snow underfoot. As I looked at Brinkley and Wilson, they did the same. My eyes again met Standish’s, whose mouth twitched briefly into a smile. Gritting my teeth, I turned and began my descent. Though I stepped softly, the snow still crunched beneath my combat boots, and my trusty AK-47 clinked softly against the zipper of my thick white coat. Small clouds momentarily obscured my sight before hastily dissipating as the warmth of my measured breaths spread into the cold night air. Wind whistled softly through the valley, taking with it the sounds of our approach. I resisted the urge to turn and flee into the night. It was only a quarter of a mile back to the Humvee, but I knew that even if by some luck I managed to get out of range before Standish and the others filled me with hot lead, I would likely get lost and freeze to death. I paused as the snow started falling harder, and turned back to look at the others. With their white balaclavas now covering their faces, they were barely distinguishable from the snow-covered hillside. The barrel of Standish’s gun was trained on my forehead, confirming my fears; I wasn’t going to make it back to base alive. He gestured for me to keep moving, and I reluctantly obliged, wracking my brain for some way out of this situation. Standish couldn’t be reasoned with- he had made that clear time after time in the months leading up to this mission. Neither could any of the other men. From his powerful jawline and thickly-muscled frame to his measured speaking voice and absolute confidence, Standish was a born leader and the others looked up to him. In stark contrast, I was a quiet, bespectacled man whom Standish outweighed by a solid fifty pounds, not to mention the fact that Standish had been leading these men for years before I came along. Nor could I make use of my assault rifle to remedy the situation. Numbers aside, each one of the men had at least five years more combat experience under their belts than I did. Each and every one of them could easily put a bullet in my brain before I had even fully raised my rifle. There was no cover to run for, no backup to call, and no words to absolve me of my alleged crimes. Standish was a man on a mission, and he had yet to fail a mission. I imagined him speaking to the others, telling them in hushed tones that I was a subversive-an informant- and that I had doomed our mission before it began. What did these men know about me, really? They knew that I had managed to finagle my way onto this mission less than three months ago. They knew that I had made sure to memorize every detail of the mission plan. What they didn’t know was what my motives were; and when Standish somehow realized that I was investigating his treachery, he must have filled in the gaps in his men’s knowledge with a story of his own. Despite my fears, I marveled at the man’s brilliance. He had managed to spend a decade in pursuit of the most dangerous criminal in the world, and only in the past six months did the most powerful government on Earth start to realize that he was in cahoots with that very criminal. I took a moment to marvel at my own naivet</p>
<p>sorry if I just sound ignorant, but did you invent these characters? I think this is an interesting essay, but the whole time I kept thinking, when are you going to mention waldo? Of course, if your characters are actually related to Waldo then it would be a different story, but for the most part I’m just kind of confused. What are you trying to say in this essay? Also, I think it would help if you divide the essay into paragraphs. It would make it easier to read. I’m curious, what inspired you to set up the essay this way?</p>
<p>@Cjohnh: I’m not sure if you quite answered their question, which was kind of the point of this essay. Circumlocutory points may not fare well, but judging by your stats you don’t even have to worry about it. You’re pretty much in anyways!</p>
<p>@nebraskagal It’s a very nice essay – good job!</p>
<p>Anxious EA applicant here. Please comment on my extended essay. I too wrote about Where’s Waldo. I procrastinated on this a lot, so keep in mind that this certainly could be better. Nevertheless, here goes nothing!</p>
<pre><code>Diary Entry 1:
</code></pre>
<p>25 years have I remained hidden.</p>
<pre><code>I was once a great traveler like you. I traversed Paris, beaches across the world, the center of the earth, even space. Heisenberg couldnt determine my position or my momentum, and I bent space-time. How futile you are to question where I am!
But the realities of a globalized world caught up to me. What use is there in reading the countless books detailing my location, or exploring the world just to see my face when a simple Google search can reveal all? Soon the U.S. and China began to discuss my whereabouts, and I had to hide somewhere else. Then it was England. The rest of Europe. Africa, Asia, then the world. To escape the infinite cameras of the Internet and of the international community became impossible. With the full weight of the international military, social media, and impatient politicians demanding Bring him to me! Where is he? it became clear. I cannot hide.
Diary Entry 2:
</code></pre>
<p>25 years of solitude. The world wasnt satisfied with just my location. Within days of my discovery, myriads began to assume my name. I became known as Hugo in Sweden, or Charlie in France, bearing little resemblance to the title my mother bestowed upon me. Not only did they take my name and my credit card info in the largest identity theft crisis this world has ever seen, but soon they took my signature red and white shirt. I was robbed by the shopping franchises, then Canada, and now Santa Claus: what does my once-distinguishable apparel mean now? What am I now?</p>
<pre><code>Diary Entry 3:
</code></pre>
<p>They found me. With their advanced technology, they could have discovered me long ago, but here they are now. Now I cant even find myself. I established my original identity by being lost in a crowd. The infinite, distant cries, Where are you? Where are you? fueled my very existence, motivated me to travel in seclusion. But todays world is different. There is a crowd in front of me. 6.9 billion people mock me. They jeer, laugh. 6.9 billion red and white stripes. Gazing, searching until there is nowhere left to run. Nowhere left to hide.</p>
<pre><code>25 years of everything. 25 years of nothing.
They begin to cheer. Their faces become animalistic, voracious, ready to devour me - they know where I am, and they are coming for me. My screams are drowned under their shouts, I found him! I found him! There he is! Its Waldo! I can only think of one thing.
</code></pre>
<p>Where am I?</p>
<p>I said if I get accepted, I’d share my essay. Well…yay. So here you go:</p>
<p>Three gift-cards for the prom-queens buying 50 Shades of Grey
Seven for the nerds and their latest on Hawking
Nine for animal lovers, their horses, and hay
One for me and my poem mocking
In the land of China where gift-cards are made
One gift-card to buy some books, One gift-card to try them
One gift-card to ship them all and in Barnes and Noble buy them
In the land of China where gift-cards are made</p>
<pre><code> (My apologies to the Tolkien estate)
</code></pre>
<hr>
<p>My Barnes and Noble gift-card was made by dwarfs in a grand forge in a very secluded area in China…Shanghai. Ok, I take that back; it isn’t that secluded. I just think the mental image of a colossal forge in a barren area better fits my epic story. Truth be told, my dear reader, it was made right next to the factory that produced “I Vote Republican” and “I Don’t Outsource Jobs” bumper stickers, but that needn’t matter right now. What does matter, however, is that only the best plastic was used for my gift-card, giving it special qualities, including making its possessor cool, suave, amazing…and very demanding of essays written by Noam Chomsky. Its magnetic strip was created using internationally shipped metals that surfaced during the process of hydrofracking in Texas. The picture of the little cute dog with a little cute hat on the card’s facade was taken using the best camera, the cutest dog, and the best, cutest, littlest hat, an auspicious start to say the absolute least. It was an exquisite work of gift-card-craftsmanship.</p>
<p>After the gift-card was forged, it was packed in a box with other, inferior Barnes and Noble gift-cards. While being shipped from Shanghai to my local Barnes and Noble, all the gift-cards talked about what they would be used to buy. One of the more annoying ones believed he would be used for world history books—he eventually ended up in the hands of one of the prom queens mentioned in the witty epigraph at the beginning of this story. Poor thing. Another wanted to be used to buy a journal. That one ended up in the mouth of a two year old toddler after his eight year old sister had insolently thrown her present on the floor after her realization that she wasn’t getting the pony she had wished for. There were many gift-cards in that box and many wishes too, though only one knew its destiny. That’s right: mine. My beautiful, dwarf forged, hydrofracked, cute dog with a hat-ted gift-card knew that he would be used for good, not evil. When the gift-cards arrived, a Barnes and Noble’s associate put them on a rack in the front of the store, naturally waiting to place mine on the rack after all the others, for even she unconsciously understood the ancient saying made popular by un-athletic kids waiting to get picked for dodge ball everywhere: You save the best for last.</p>
<p>As fate would have it, my mother walked into Barnes and Noble not more than a few minutes after my gift-card was given its place of glory on the rack in the front of the store. My mom thought it would be fun to surprise me with a gift-card to Barnes and Noble. Why? Because I’m such a cool son and all I ever really want from anyone are Barnes and Noble gift cards. So when she walked up to the gift-card rack, some other-worldly force, one intent on making sure I received the beautiful, dwarf forged, hydrofracked cute dog with a hat-ted gift-card, made her pick the one. As she walked out of the store, she distinctly heard Chomsky…Chomsky…Chomsky…</p>
<p>The rest, as they say, my dear reader, is history. Once my mom gave me my present, I drove to Barnes and Noble and spent it all on a few books. (I specifically remember this weird feeling I had at the time; I had the urge to buy The Essential Chomsky but didn’t know why.) After my purchase, I went on my way, forgetting all about my special little gift card. As it turned out, some jerk Barnes and Noble associate destroyed it when his girlfriend broke up with him through a text message. Of all the days to forget his stress-ball…</p>
<p>Here’s my Waldo essay; I was accepted. </p>
<p>Where is Waldo? Waldo is hiding. Waldo is making sure never to be seen. Waldo is blending in. </p>
<p>Waldo is making sure the bad guys don’t win. He keeps the secrets no one else can be trusted to. He always trusts no one, for fear that those secrets will come back to haunt him. Waldo is making the world a better place. Waldo is doing his job.</p>
<p>But life isn’t all fun for Waldo. He can never have a family. He can never have love or children or a home or a life. They would all be compromised; they would all be liabilities. They would keep Waldo from accomplishing his job. They would be distractions.</p>
<p>If anyone finds Waldo, it would be the end. Everything would be gone, years of hard work would be ruined, and Waldo’s only purpose in life would be gone. Because Waldo’s only purpose is to be found—and where’s the fun if we can’t do that anymore?</p>
<p>Where is Waldo? Waldo is in hell, the hell of an existence with no acceptance. The people who want to find him don’t care about him any more than they care about any of us—they only want him so they can get rid of him. No one actually wants Waldo. Waldo must exist, but no one wishes that he did—would not life be so much easier if there were no Waldo to protect, to hide, to confide? For then there would be no conflict, no war, no secrets. Waldo hates this. He hates his life. </p>
<p>But he plugs on and on, beating against the current. Because Waldo is on the side of the angels—though he is not one of them—and will do what it takes to make sure that no one else has to bear the same hellish eternity as that which he has chosen for himself. And so he hides, sometimes in plain sight, sometimes with great precision. The world cannot know where’s Waldo, for the sake of its own awful existence. At least its place is set—he must float from cursed life to cursed life, never grounded in his own reality. Always someone else’s.</p>
<p>Where is Waldo? I don’t know, because Waldo himself does not.</p>
<p>Decision: Accepted</p>
<p>Life Experiences and Fear
The gift of life experiences is birthed from the beauty of fear.
Fear is the pure basis of curiosity, for if the unknown was simply laid out for mankind to discover, we would lose the curiosity that gives humans humanity. The most wonderful life experiences I tend to remember are the ones where I went out on a limb - learning to ride a bicycle, receiving my first kiss, dressing up as my BC Calculus teacher for Halloween – and felt a rush of emotion from the completion of the action.
We are told “Don’t be afraid.”
I tell myself “Be afraid, but do it anyway.”
Fear is the beautiful impetus that convinces us, in a dark and discreet manner, that secretly, we don’t want to know what will happen if we attempt tasks x, y, and z. It also convinces us that even more secretly, we do want to know what will happen if we attempt tasks x, y, and z. Fear is tricky in that it’s connotation in society tends to be negative, but it’s one of the most positive things one could ever utilize. Fear is nothing to cower over. Fear supplements courage and upholds faith.
As I grew older in life, I realized how ridiculous it is to be told not to fear, not to worry, not to flinch upon impact. That’s like being told not to be human, and avoid blinking at all costs. Moving outward from the concept of avoiding conflict and the unknown, I have discovered the joy of Advanced Placement classes and the probability that I will fail at least one test in each AP class during the school year. I have realized the thrill of comprehending a concept that took years to grasp. I have absorbed the magnificence of how my chances of success quickly plummet to zero if I do not attempt at all.
I have fully realized that writing sarcastic answers to test questions is a wonderful way to score poorly.
We, as humans, will always be afraid. That is a given, a fact of life, and avoiding facts of life usually do not pan out well in the end for anyone. The key to life, I have found, is to acknowledge fear, say “So what?”, and live regardless. It is the ultimate hindrance to fear being afraid.
In reflection on my life, I cannot remember a time where something wonderfully memorable happened as a result of being boring. Ultimately, the past for my gift of experiences boils down to the times where I was afraid but found the courage to carry on. Honestly, I am still afraid for what will happen tomorrow, or ten years from now. I am afraid for the people I love. I am afraid that my life goals – to study neuroscience, change the world, give back to my community, skydive, and live a life I am proud of – will not be reached by the time I lie on my deathbed, whisper “I have money hidden in the-“and pass away. I am afraid for this college application. I am afraid of rejection.
This gives me courage. That is the point of fear. It is not meant to cripple us, to do us harm. It is meant to give us strength.
Regardless of whether or not I conquer my fears, I will have made plenty of lovely mistakes, created great (and probably awful) memories, and been able to say “I tried.” This is what motivates me to learn all that I can, ask as many questions as time allows, and contribute as much as possible to a world that is taught to ask “What if?” and stop at that. The sometimes burdensome and heavy-handed gift of life experiences is worth my ability to provide diversity, which comes not only in different genders and colors, but in different backgrounds based on who we are because of what we have been through. My best stories to tell originate from the moments before, when I contemplated taking the leap of faith to my objective. Embracing fear has made me ambitious and more able to shape my own happiness.
The gift of life experiences tells me to remember where the blessings of knowledge come from. It tells me to learn that fear is meant to supplement us, and sometimes break us in order to rebuild us (or at least I believe that’s what The Dark Knight Rises was trying to tell us). It tells me to try anyway, learn anyway, and succeed anyway.
Do anyway.
Live anyway.
Live in any way.
No gift could be more beautiful. </p>
<p>//not my best essay and it’s not…great. But I like it, and I suppose that’s what counts.</p>
<p>@hevydevy: Love your essay! I was actually watching Two Towers this morning while waiting for decisions. Congrats on getting admitted btw!</p>
<p>Here’s my Waldo essay; also Accepted</p>
<p>The CDC is currently working to understand and combat a still-developing outbreak of a novel bacterial illness, denoted WALDO until a more apt nomenclature can be constructed. This bacterium has been identified in twelve patients, each previously a healthy adult male who has suffered severe febrile and neurodegenerative illness. All identified cases are from the Chicago area, but unconfirmed reports of similar illness have emerged from New York, Canada, Spain, England, and China. Interim case definitions based on febrile and neurodegenerative symptoms were issued by the CDC on October 25 and include criteria for patient under investigation, probable case, and confirmed case. Case definitions are available at <a href=“http://www.cdc.gov/WALDO[/url]”>www.cdc.gov/WALDO</a>. This information is current as of October 31. </p>
<pre><code>All twelve patients are currently confirmed cases, with positive test results for WALDO infection. All cases have the following symptoms: core temperature of 100.1 100.8 degrees Fahrenheit, high flushing, trismus (lockjaw), contortion of face into grimace, and dry, reddened eyes from a reduced rate of blinking accompanied by a blank stare. Five showed signs of myopia, and one additional case had acquired thick-lensed glasses. Strangely, each patients hair was found to have brown roots, even though family inquiries revealed all to have naturally blonde or black hair. Additionally, all were in possession of an article of red and white striped clothing upon hospitalization. Seven were wearing a red and white shirt and a red and white bobble hat, four were wearing a shirt but no hat, and one was wearing only the hat. It is currently hypothesized that WALDO-induced neurodegeneration couples serotonin production to the signal produced by the optic nerve on sight of the striped red and white pattern, resulting in the infected persons affinity to said pattern.
It should be noted that no cases sought medical help of their own accord all were brought in by friends or relatives. All public health facilities and media organizations are therefore encouraged to promote awareness of WALDO and encourage people to keep a lookout for and report any suspected WALDO infection. Statements from friends indicate WALDO sufferers becoming increasingly socially active in the days leading up to hospitalization, displaying an unusually strong desire to go places such as concerts, fairs, and shopping mall where there are large groups of people The CDC has thus implemented a program in which volunteers nationwide can monitor live footage of crowds for signs of WALDO. More information is available at www.cdc.gov/findWALDO.
The source of the outbreak and any possible mode of transmission are currently unknown. No travel alerts have been issued at this time. The CDC encourages people to wash their hands often and to see a medical professional when ill. State and local health departments with questions should contact the CDC Emergency Operations Center.
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