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Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
901

<p>Here’s my non-Waldo essay (I was accepted).</p>

<p>Prompt: Tell us about the relationship between you and your arch-nemesis.</p>

<p>–</p>

<p>In Which: My Childhood is Ruined by Nefarious Wax. Long Live Crayola.
EXTENDED ESSAY OPTION 1</p>

<p>RoseArt is for those long holiday dinners you spend at the kid’s table, pretending to eat cold casseroles, trying to color with the commercial equivalent of a dyed birthday candle. RoseArt is for those drawings your mom made you create for your distant cousin thrice-removed, the one with the name your five-year-old tongue couldn’t pronounce without a lisp, the stale-breathed stranger who sent you a bargain-price box of primary colors solely because of the almost indefinable number of nucleic acid combinations The Man claims you share. RoseArt is for the darkest parts of your childhood, the memories you’ve tried and failed to black out of your past, the moments that will stay with you until death (or perhaps even longer). RoseArt is the cry of juvenile creativity being mercilessly stabbed by the dull, wax point of an inferior product; a product which, no matter how intensely the world despises its existence, refuses to die quietly or reform into something less menacing. </p>

<p>Why has it survived? </p>

<p>Because its victims are too traumatized, too damaged, too broken to speak out in an effort to heal the wounds of their crushed dreams and murdered childhoods. RoseArt is the embodiment of every failure and disappointment you have or will ever experience. </p>

<p>To draw with a RoseArt crayon is to fling yourself head-first into a lake of sin and fire, leaving behind any last pieces of quenching liquid or sweet redemption that might otherwise extend the life you previously desired. To draw with a RoseArt crayon is to purchase a chocolate milkshake in the McDonald’s drive-thru—in the 1990s, before they reformed—only realizing after the initial sip, after the words “too late” have been systematically inscribed into millions of scholastic History text books across our liberated nation, that there are two woeful chunks of the soggiest, most artificially-flavored synthetic strawberries mixed in to the tasteless ice-milk-and-browned-sucrose combination disproportionately divided between paper cup and crying mouth. To draw with a RoseArt crayon is to pursue the identical and inevitable consequence of relying on France to defend a shared border during wartime: death, dishonorable death. You might laugh at the irony if it weren’t for the icy claws of shame grasping your throat. </p>

<p>I have gone through countless drafts and red pens in an effort to make this essay sound creative as possible. It is only now that I realize the cold, hard truth: I am not creative. Whatever creativity I was given at birth was stifled in my childhood. Do I blame myself? No, of course not—I was but a babe, unconcerned with the looming expectations of higher education. Alas, the faults of my youth must have consequences reaching far into my future. The RoseArt crayon destroyed the qualities that might have otherwise decided my educational fate.</p>

<p>O, RoseArt crayon, I will never forgive you for that which you have done, for that which you have stolen.</p>

902

<p>First post! Just created an account for this xD</p>

<p>Decision: Accepted</p>

<p>Prompt: Where’s Waldo?</p>

<p>Waldo has always plagued our society as one of the most profound and unanswerable mysteries of our era. The iconic time-travelling enigma donning a red and white striped hat and shirt, complete with backpack and cane, almost seems to be mocking you as he veils himself cunningly amidst a hubbub of themed characters and beasts. Everything from his wavy brown hair to his casual grin suggests a condescending ease in his disappearance, especially after you’ve been searching for three hours and skipped lunch to prevent him from winning, to wipe the smirk off his face. Even when you’ve turned away your friends with a dismissive wave and endured the questioning looks of your parents and brother, you simply cannot tear your eyes away from the brightly colored pages and admit defeat. His elusiveness yet ability to hide in plain sight is often the most frustrating, so that even when you do find him, your triumph is short-lived as you simply cannot believe he was right in front of the dragon-riding knight this whole time. If I sound bitter, I apologize; what some children took as an amusing pastime I took as a personal challenge. Even now as a young adult, I am still searching for a way to win, for a way to triumph over my childhood enemy.
I believe I have finally found an answer in physics. The theory of superposition states that until we confirm otherwise with observation or measurement, an object is simultaneously in all possible states. Essentially, every possibility is true until we prove that they are not. When applied to Waldo, we see that in his infinite ability to disappear and reappear in different ages and locations, he is simultaneously everywhere he could be. So basically, after years of careful deliberation and thought, my answer to the timeless question of Waldo’s location is that he could be anywhere so he is everywhere. This probably seems like a lame answer because it is. Even in this solution, the implications are actually quite chilling because right now, Waldo is behind me as I write this paper (and behind you as you read it, for that matter). Once I check behind me and observe that he isn’t there; then that is no longer a possibility so it is no longer true. However, the instant I turn back again, the instant I am no longer actively observing that region of space, Waldo is once again behind me, like a twisted comical version of Slender Man. Even though I’ve technically answered where he is with some elusive indefinite answer, it seems Waldo still has the last laugh.
Maybe this battle isn’t one worth fighting. One day, I might forget this petty dispute and chalk it off as a wasted attempt to prove something. I might write a clumsily written but heart-felt apology to Waldo that he would quickly accept. We would go have a slice of pizza and laugh about the good old days and our childish conflicts and fight over the bill because we both wanted to pay. We’d grow up, go our separate ways, but still remain in touch and catch up every once in a while over some cheap fast food or a drink. He would travel into different dimensions and eras as he is so prone to do, but he would always return eventually and tell me of his adventures. Maybe one day, but for now, I refuse to admit defeat. I’ll simply have to search harder for the answer, whatever it is, wherever it can be found, and hope that the time will come when I can finally pat myself on the back and say that it was all worth it in the end.</p>

903

<p>Accepted. </p>

<p>Waldo!</p>

<p>During my childhood, the search for finding Waldo would occupy hours upon hours of my time, sucking me into a world where all that mattered was some man I didn’t know, who wore a funny hat and had a missing shoe. So nearly a decade after I had put down Waldo for good, I found him in the last place I had expected to find him – the University of Chicago’s application. While I wasn’t looking, he had escaped the bonds of ink on paper into being an entity with a Facebook page, a website, an iPhone app, and even a dedicated Wiki site.
My journey to find Waldo began when I received some old picture books from my cousin who was supposedly ‘too old for these now.’ Little did he know The Great Waldo Search actually featured a philosophically deep quest! According to the book’s introduction, Waldo ‘embarked upon a fantastic journey’ upon which he found a scroll at every stage – and when he found the twelfth, he would ‘understand the truth about himself.’ Yet, Waldo’s exceptional journey is not one he takes alone, for the quest for self-discovery is one the reader must take as well, encountering very similar pitfalls and rewards.
In Martin Handford’s illustrations, the scenes are so densely populated that simply contemplating the search for the elusive Waldo may seem intimidating to the reader. Similarly, the first step into a college education as well as a blooming career may seem just as awesome for the high school graduate. Their dreams and hopes may seem to lie so distantly on the other side of the mountains that they may be too intimidated to search for them – and the path towards success is not a straightforward one. In Handford’s often chaotic backdrops, the artist incorporates countless scenarios full of intrigue and oddity, usually distracting enough to deter the mind from one’s quest for finding the ever elusive Waldo. And much like Handford does in his scenes, reality cunningly places such distractions on the fog laden road, drawing unwary travellers away into dead ends that lead nowhere. Sometimes, too, many dead ends lead to failed dreams – other times, many are tempted to give up on those dreams because they face terrible adversities that block the way. Such is the scenario of embarking on a college education and a career to a teenager.<br>
But when the reader catches a glimpse of that candy cane red and white, the plain glasses and the walking cane, the unmistakable euphoria of pride and accomplishment floods the seeker – similar to the joy of one seeing his or her dreams come to fruition. The grand search for Waldo is a complex one, encouraging the reader to develop essential tools along the way, such as concentration, evaluation, and persistence, while at the same time helping him to enjoy the view. The quest for one’s dreams are no different, teaching the traveller comparable life skills. Handford eventually signs off the The Great Waldo Search with a scene titled the “Land of Waldos,” which features a Waldo hidden amongst hundreds of other ‘Waldos’ - who appear very much like Waldo, but are still not quite uniquely Waldo, pointing out that the lesson Waldo learns by the end of his journey is that his existence is simply one of many. But then, really, what would be the point in finding Waldo if he’s not special at all? No one can deny Waldo’s unique presence – he manifests it even today in Waldo flash mobs, Waldo scene reenactments, and surfaces even in the Guinness World Records in a category labeled ‘most people dressed as Waldo.’ Certainly, we as people must realize that our dreams are wholly unique and our own – a quality essential in order to attain success and accomplishment in life.</p>

904

<p>This year’s UC applicant pool: </p>

<p>[Buzz</a> Lightyear - Waldo essays Waldo essays everywhere](<a href=“quickmeme: the funniest page on the internet”>Waldo essays Waldo essays everywhere - Buzz Lightyear - quickmeme)</p>

905

<p>Why was the hardest one the most popular is what I would like to know I MEAN REALLY.</p>

906

<p>@shandsy7</p>

<p>That was probably one of the best essays on this forum. It’s colorful and lively despite its
dark metaphors and the usage of war and death as a metaphor for crayons adds a nice touch of irony. </p>

<p>@tawarren95
I think that the difficulty of a prompt varies from person to person. Waldo seems the easiest to write creatively about owing to its being the most unusual of this year’s prompts, though some might see it differently. I found a creative way to write about a present and its past, and it’s certainly possible to do the same for all the others.</p>

<p>The problem with Waldo is that since so many people took that path, it becomes harder to stand out with a Waldo essay.</p>

907

<p>Agree with esimpnoxin about shandsy7’s essay. That completely blew me away</p>

908

<p>REJECTED - Ouch. </p>

<p>W-A-L-D-O: A bi-syllabic, five letter word that stirs us in a way ‘The Notebook’ never could. But for years the question “Where’s Waldo” has been the headline, the focal point, the pivotal conundrum. Why has nobody ever stopped to ask “Why Waldo” or “Who’s Waldo, really”; questions I would surely have posed before engaging in what was to become the longest and largest man-hunt of all time. </p>

<p>I’ve never read the books of Waldo, but then this isn’t really about Waldo at all, is it. Waldo is simply a name given to any manifestation of our collective psychosis, embodying dreams, emotions, ideas, and everything that is right with the world. Waldo is a mirage of all that can be or should be but never is. Representing the symbolic perfection and imperfection of the world harmonized into one figure, one person, one unwavering sense of compassion; a true understanding. Waldo is both infinity and zero, at the blissful intersection where the possible and the impossible collide. </p>

<p>But Waldo is no closer to flawlessness than you and I. He is a mere mortal, someone who makes mistakes, someone who has but two legs and one pair of eyes, and yet somehow someone we cannot live without. At a sub-conscious level, we don’t look to Superman or Bruce Banner to envision our perfect selves (most of us, anyway). We need to be able to relate to our former selves in order to collate our current selves with who we wish to become. Hence, Waldo is our glimpse of perfection through an imperfect life, showing us that it is not our mistakes that define us, but rather our inherent need to be good beyond what we can possibly envision for ourselves.</p>

<p>Coined in his 1827 novel Selina, German author Jean Paul described “Weltschmerz” as “the kind of feeling experienced by someone who understands that the physical reality of the world can never satisfy the demands of the mind”. Out of this feeling that we all share, our quest for Waldo is born. </p>

<p>Although we know that his odds of existence are equal to his chances of non-existence, we favour the former, because as humans we are inherently optimistic. And even though our world is rife with seemingly insurmountable problems such as poverty, war and widespread disease, we cannot shake the intrinsic hopefulness and conviction without which our existence would become merely a flint in an inextinguishable fire. </p>

<p>So the harsh truth is that Waldo’s location, however crucial to me, can never be determined. Waldo is simply a mirror, behind which lies my darkest fears, my unfading worry that we, each and every one of us, can never truly be found. Much like a secret, once we find him, his power is lost. Waldo’s magic lies in anonymity, the premise that he can be anyone, do anything and be anywhere. He’s the winner of the insoluble game of hide and seek that we call “self-actualization”. </p>

<p>So you see, once the why is understood, the where becomes almost moot, a mere tangent to a bigger question. We’re all looking for a Waldo and I sincerely hope my Waldo is out there; I bet he has it all figured out. Perhaps he’s in some parallel world, reading this essay with an arrogant smirk, or maybe he’s just stuck inside a book waiting for someone to find him. Waldo may not exist, and maybe neither does the perfect me. But if you believe in one, then why not believe in the other too?</p>

909

<p>Serious props, Phase Two Zero. I absolutely loved your essay, and scoped your stats from another thread. It’s a damnable shame they didn’t take you - their loss, really.</p>

<p>Deferred, myself. Archenemy. Might rework my essay if I have the option - it was pretty stylistically drab, but I felt like the interesting content/approach made up for the trite format. I guess they didn’t see it that way.</p>

910

<p>Thank you, both! It started as a comment on someone’s facebook status; someone pointed out to me that it could work as a college essay :slight_smile: </p>

<p>Phasetwozero, I really like your essay. I though it was a freah take on a popular prompt; I’m sorry you were rejected. It really is their loss.</p>

911

<p>Accepted</p>

<p>(The stars are blanks for my name)</p>

<p>:</p>

<p>RAP BATTLE: Other Well Qualified UChicago Applicant vs. *** *****</p>

<p>Moderator: “Let’s give a big, warm welcome to our first contender, Other Well Qualified UChicago Applicant!”</p>

<p>Audience: (cheers)</p>

<p>UChicago Admissions Officers: (watch inquisitively)</p>

<p>Other Applicant: "My GPA is high,
As are my SATs,
I’m an officer in debate,
Taking seven APs,</p>

<pre><code> My life’s already planned,
My destiny decided,
On competition, I thrive,
On success, I’m prided,

    I'll go get a career,
    Work the system for betterment,
    Bring in millions of dollars,
    Build a thousand acre settlement,

    Happiness is achievement,
    The destination over the journey,
    I had three possible outcomes,
    Doctor, banker, or attorney,

    I'll reach my final goal,
    With little meaningful remembrance,
    And it all began, 
    With my college acceptance."

</code></pre>

<p>Moderator: “Wow, Other Well Qualified UChicago Applicant really laid down some mad rhymes. It’s going to be very difficult to beat that. Here now trying to do so, please welcome the second contender, *** *****!”</p>

<p><em>**: (clears throat/pops collar)
"My name’s </em> *****, I rock the mic hard,
Most circles hold me with the highest regard,
I’m considered a talent, from east coast to west,
I’m clearly not perfect, but I try my best,</p>

<pre><code>Like my worthy opponent, my scores are quite great,
I’m an officer in Rho Kappa, and he in Debate,
We’re both highly successful, in school and out,
And we’ll continue to do well, without the slightest doubt,

But what my opponent lacks, and what I possess,
Is that extra flair, that swagger, that finesse,
Because while he’s controlled, his actions robotic,
My life is colored, and proudly chaotic,

I’m passionate, daring, and at times, quite crazy,
I’m powerful like a bull, but gentle like daisy,
I’m creatively liberal, letting my imagination run,
I got ninety nine problems, but finding happiness ain’t one,

I’ll still make a great living,
With a blue-tinted white collar,
Because I’ll actually understand,
The value of a dollar,

I find time for laughter,
While chasing my ambitions,
Please consider all this,
In your admissions decisions."
</code></pre>

<p>Moderator: “Impossible! I did not previously believe that Other Well Qualified UChicago Applicant could be topped, but now, it definitely could go either way! We’ll just have to wait and see the final vote from our officers.”</p>

<p>UChicago Admissions Officers: (confer for a few minutes)
“We have a made a decision.”</p>

912

<p>Thank you for your heartwarming comments on my essay, it means an awful lot to me, especially during this time. Best of luck to you all!</p>

913

<p>@amishphotoclub</p>

<p>No offense, but that essay struck me as pretentious and clich</p>

914

<p>Loved the rap essay. Very humble, yet offensive to the “privileged”. Not only did it set you apparent from all the “number focused” applicants, but it was actually kind of funny. </p>

<p>Not surprised you got in!</p>

915

<p>Applying RD. Here’s my favorite book(s) essay. Might be a little long?</p>

<p>When asked what my favorite book was, I used to instantly (and truthfully) respond, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Reading To Kill a Mockingbird was a series of small, powerful experiences for me. When Calpurnia took Scout and Jem to church, I was as stunned as Scout was when the parishioners burst into song. When Scout desperately threw herself into the mob surrounding her father in front of Tom Robinson’s jail cell, and started rambling about entailments, my heart stood still. And when she later said, “Hey, Boo,” with tears in her eyes, I almost started crying too.</p>

<p>Yes, To Kill a Mockingbird was my favorite book, and it still is. But a little while ago, I realized with mixture of horror and mild self-loathing, that my favorite book is really a tie between To Kill a Mockingbird… and the Da Vinci Code.</p>

<p>I’ll say that again. I’ve read a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. (Beautiful.) I’ve read Catch 22. (Awesome.) I’ve read Brave New World, Slaughterhouse Five, and a host of other transcendentally brilliant pieces of literature that I earnestly, fervently adore. But above those, I’ve somehow placed Dan Brown’s vapid, generic, came-to-a-theater-near-you-and-the-acting-was-really-bad Da Vinci Code.</p>

<p>HOW. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? </p>

<p>Have you ever read the Da Vinci Code? Of course you have. Everyone has, right? And if you haven’t, you can probably find it at a used book store for a dollar and fifty cents. It’s a very quick read, perfectly entertaining, pretty predictable, and the writing is flat-out terrible. There’s the mystery-solving cryptographer Robert Langdon, and some other guy who you think is a good guy but obviously ends up being the bad guy. And the Holy Grail isn’t a cup after all: it’s Mary Magdalene. (You find that out shortly into the book, so trust me, I haven’t spoiled anything, yet.)</p>

<p>If you’ve figured out how there could possibly be a tie in my mind between a masterpiece of American literature and a ludicrous detective novel, I’m sorry, I don’t believe you. As far as I can tell, they have one thing in common: they were the two books I brought with me the only time I traveled, internationally, by myself. That was two years ago.</p>

<p>I had purchased the supposedly page-turning bestseller at the airport in New York City an hour before my flight departed. Four days later, I was sitting on my cheap cot in a Venice hostel, the sun rising outside of my window, the Grand Canal glistening and golden in the morning light… and frantically turning the pages of my already-battered paperback because I simply NEEDED to know what the secret word was that would open the first cryptex. How sad is that? </p>

<p>When I finished the Da Vinci Code the next day, I slammed it shut with a sigh of relief. But at that point, I was like Usain Bolt, sprinting a hundred meters, crossing the finish line, and finding myself unable to stop right away. I had to read something, anything, else. So I reached into my backpack, where To Kill a Mockingbird sat, a gift from a friend who was stunned when she discovered that I had never read her favorite novel. I had brought it with me to humor her, not thinking I would actually open it.</p>

<p>By page 2, with the sentence, “Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum,” I had realized, eureka, that this was a good book, that books could be good again. By the time Atticus was standing in the street, his glasses cracked on the ground, formerly reluctant but now steadily pointing the rifle at a rabid, rambling dog, I loved everything about To Kill a Mockingbird. As the French countryside sped by outside the window of my surprisingly rickety TGV train, I finished the book, put it down on my lap, and stared into the distance for a long time. The memory of Boo and Scout and Atticus and Jem, of Dill and Calpurnia and the departed Tom Robinson, of everything I had just read, of everything I had just experienced, was completely overpowering. </p>

<p>In the months to come, “Don’t you usually read that in the eighth grade?” was the question I almost always got when I told people that To Kill a Mockingbird was my favorite book. After a while, I began to notice that my response was always the same: “Maybe, but I read it right after I read the Da Vinci Code, so it seemed like the best thing ever!” Every time, that’s what I would say. That’s what I still say. I can’t mention one without mentioning the other, as you probably have noticed. I was slightly ashamed at first, but I’m over it now.</p>

<p>Would To Kill a Mockingbird still be my favorite book if I hadn’t read the Da Vinci Code immediately beforehand? I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care. Harper Lee’s first and last novel has solidified itself (for now) as one of my two favorite books, period. But I think what I’ve realized is that your favorite thing is more than what’s simply “good,” or “great,” or even “wonderful.” Your favorite anything, whether it’s your favorite book, or favorite song, or favorite time of the day, holds a singular place in your heart, even if it’s someone else’s favorite also. My favorite book is the Da Vinci Code, for ensuring that To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book. If that makes sense. </p>

<p>Thank you, Dan Brown. But seriously, be a little less predictable next time; I saw that (spoiler alert) Leigh Teabing was the evil mastermind coming from several miles away.</p>

916

<p>I was accepted EA. I wrote the Silence essay which, surprisingly, seemed to be a less popular option this year. I had to rush this essay and somehow managed to complete it in two days.</p>

<p>The prompt:
Susan Sontag, AB’51, wrote that “silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech.” Write about an issue or a situation when you remained silent, and explain how silence may speak in ways that you did or did not intend. The Aesthetics of Silence, 1967. </p>

<p>Closeness Through Silence</p>

<p>People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence</p>

<p>In their 1965 single, “The Sound of Silence”, Simon and Garfunkel describe a dystopian setting in which people fear the powerful mandating qualities of silence. They convey a foreboding message to listeners, cautioning us that “silence like a cancer grows” – it threatens to destroy cultures and ways of life. I don’t believe that their warnings should be taken too seriously, but some of what they’ve described can be seen today. Silence is something we experience often enough but rarely recognize or appreciate. The bustling world in which we live has forced us to accommodate for all the incessant everyday noises and so we’ve learned to close our ears and minds to sounds and silence alike. As Simon and Garfunkel envisioned, we now automatically block out what we hear to the point that actually listening takes effort, while small talk has no purpose unless we forcefully speak. For example, if said out loud repeatedly without stopping, “silence” loses its meaning. Its definition is clear and unchanging, yet when separated into a continuing pattern of syllables, “sigh-lens” has no more significance than complete gibberish. Similar to how our minds conveniently stop reminding us that there are shoes on our feet, the words of any language lose meaning once our brains deem the sounds redundant. Sometimes, deliberate silence or dynamic speech is the only way to share true moments of human communication</p>

<p>In August of 2008, I was lucky to experience for myself the old saying, “silence speaks more than words”. The memorable incident occurred somewhere between the bamboo surrounded town of Anji (my mother’s hometown known for being the setting of the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and the sprawling metropolis that is Shanghai. I was seated next to my grandfather in a crowded commuter train, excited for the day. Everything was fantastic; I was in China with family members whom I saw only every three or four years, about to attend a preliminary Olympic soccer match in one of my favorite cities. I had just finished the grueling 20 hour flight from Boston the night before, but sleep was not on my mind when I could spend time with my grandfather instead. I call him Wai Gong, Chinese for maternal grandfather, and even though we are 60 years apart in age and have completely different upbringings, I have more in common with him than with anyone else. We share very similar senses of humor while both loving animals, sports, and travelling (just this year at age 77 he rode camels on the Silk Road). I also like to think that we are equally personable and well-liked by our peers who see us as warm, approachable people. Partly due to these links, there is an undeniable natural tie between us.</p>

<p>As we leaned back side-by-side for the two hour train ride, neither I nor Wai Gong spoke much. It might have been daydreaming of the fun to be had or jetlag on my part, but I strongly doubt it – something more was happening during that silence, a bond that somehow transcended everyday chit-chat. But there we sat, doing nothing except sharing a bag of dried tofu slices, inside a noisy train in a noisy world. The silence came first unnoticed as I stared blankly out the windows, but soon I found myself trying to think of something to say. After all, it had been many years since I last spoke with Wai Gong in person. I turned to him, intending to bring up the seniors’ ping-pong tournament he had won earlier that year, but ended up just grinning after he felt my movement, turning toward me as well and smiling. It was in this moment of deep connection that my mother, from across the aisle, snapped a photo of us and for the rest of the ride Wai Gong and I passed the hours in silence, with his arm around my shoulder.</p>

<p>Why didn’t I say something to the likes of “I love you”, or anything for that matter? My best explanation is that the time on the train I spent with my grandfather were instants of shared physical, emotional, and spiritual peacefulness and closeness of some sort. Just like the everyday silent prayers at home and the moments of silence in school, the mutually growing link between us had become a form of speech in which talking was no longer needed to understand each other at times. We appreciated each other’s company, and with the deliberate silence we both agreed upon, love was unspoken and unnecessary to be said. No matter how many hours of talking I could spend with anyone, I would never experience such a beautiful, fulfilling sound of silence as I had with Wai Gong.</p>

917

<p>@BliggityBlue Wow. Really, really excellent, and I don’t think it’s too long. Good work. Maybe fewer paragraph breaks, but I’m just picking nits.</p>

918

<p>@BliggityBlue
Maybe it is a tad too long, but not much. You don’t have much to worry about, though, yours is a great essay!</p>

919

<p>I didn’t want to post this right after posting my extended essay, but here’s what I wrote for the optional essay. (Accepted, EA)</p>

<hr>

<p>For the sake of being concise, I decided that I should only write about one book. The choice was difficult.</p>

<p>I first considered Jane Eyre, which has perhaps the strongest heroine in all of literature—a woman with absolutely no virtues but an outstanding work ethic and moral clarity. From the start, Jane’s life sucks. Every time you think she’s going to maybe get a break, something else happens. Oh, your aunt hates you? CONGRATULATIONS! You get to go to boarding school and make your first best friend ever! Things are starting to look good for you now, huh? Oh, wait… your best friend just died, along with pretty much everybody else in your class. Well, that’s… um… hey! At least you got a job! I mean, you’re a governess, but that’s a really impressive career for a 19th century woman! Rochester sounds pretty cool, too—sounds like you guys like each other. You should totally like, make something happen there. Oh, wait. He has a girlfriend. Well, that’s an issue. Oh, but he just said he’s in love with you! You’re going to get married to the only man you ever loved! That’s great… or not? Crazy ex-wife in the attic? Yeah, that’s a bit of a problem. I guess I’m not that surprised, though—I mean, there’s still a sizeable chunk of pages left in this book, so something had to happen, right? </p>

<p>I thought about Harry Potter, which—though not a very original essay topic—centers around some of the most well-developed and beautifully flawed characters I have ever read about, exploring the seven-year adventure of The Boy Who Lived who really is NOT the boy who lived, he’s* Just Harry*, and honestly there is nothing he could have accomplished without the help of those around him and sometimes he’s such a little jerk I want to just reach into the book and strangle him but in the end, in the end I’m just like, wow, Joanne, how do you do characterization because oh my gosh, it is impossible to talk about this series without lapsing into incoherent run-ons so maybe I should choose something else. </p>

<p>I was very close to writing this entire essay on Great Expectations, which is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. Oh, Charles, how do you do words? Seriously, whoever’s reading this—do you have a copy of Great Expectations accessible to you? Can you stop reading this for a minute and run over to the library? You can probably just ask a Literature professor for a copy—one of them is bound to have the novel close at hand. Okay, thanks. Please open up to the first page. Read the first two paragraphs. Have you ever seen more beautifully-formed sentences? I haven’t. Look at the first two sentences. Do you see how he uses Pip’s nonchalant explanation of his name to reflect the attitude others have had towards him prior to the fortune? Read where he talks about his parents’ gravestones. Notice how he refers to his mother as “also Georgiana” throughout the rest of the book. Contrast that childish perception with the sophisticated diction. Appreciate the last sentence of the second paragraph; cry at the beautiful, emotional purpose of that broad setting description that zeroes in onto the crying figure of a young boy, how syntax is used to reflect the narrator’s feelings of insignificance. How can I write a single essay on Great Expectations when I’m fighting to concisely analyze the first two paragraphs? </p>

<p>I love Jane Eyre for its quiet-but-effective feminism. I love Harry Potter for its outstanding characters. I love Great Expectations for its rhetorical value. Despite this, it would be unfair for me to choose any of these as the subject of my essay. It would be unfair for me to ignore the man who first planted a love for literature inside my heart. It would be unfair for me not to write about C.S. Lewis. </p>

<p>For the first six-or-so years of my life, my mom would read me a chapter from C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia every night before bed. We would go through the books in the order they were written (starting with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), rather than following the publisher’s chronological pattern. After finishing the last chapter of The Last Battle, we would start the series over again the following night. </p>

<p>The stories never grew stale—each sentence made me long for the adventure my own six-year-old life seemed to lack. When I learned how to read, I read and reread the books whenever I could, often staying up past my bedtime to do so (as a result, the entire series was once confiscated from me for the worst two days of my elementary life). </p>

<p>I remember looking through every closet and cupboard in our house, desperately searching for my own Narnia. I wanted these stories to be as real as the paper they were printed on. I wanted my bland fish sticks from Jewel to be pavenders from the Eastern Ocean. There were many days I spent sitting on the swings by myself during recess, too shy to ask the other kids if I could join in a game of tag—in these times especially, I wished the trees would talk. </p>

<p>I never did find my own Narnia. I never discovered Lantern Waste, and my plastic rings never sent me to the Wood Between the Worlds. While my closet doesn’t end in anything more than a beige wall, Narnia led me to an adventure I didn’t know I wanted. Narnia led me to develop a love for stories, an appreciation for the power of words. There are a lot of people who tell me that English isn’t a “real” major, that I should go into science if I want to make a difference in the world—I don’t buy into that notion. If I can use words to change just one person’s life as words have changed mine, I will have made a difference.</p>

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<p>@BliggityBlue: I really liked yours! I don’t think it’s too long at all- the idea of a badly-written book being your favorite book because it made a piece of literature become your favorite book is a fun idea :slight_smile: They probably haven’t heard that one before. It was very well-written, too. TKAMB is also one of my favorites :)</p>

<p>@fxrn5553: …WOW. No wonder you were accepted-- that was AMAZING! I thought about that prompt, but none of my silly ideas could amount to your own interpretation. Not to mention that the entire thing was beautifully written, and I almost felt like crying by the end. Well done!</p>