<p>Hi everyone! I just wanted to ask for advice on my first essay for UCLA. The personal statement involves discussing any hopes, ambitions, life experiences, and inspirations. So, I decided to narrow my focus on an inspirational person who influenced what I aspire to be like. I’m not sure if this essay is strong enough or if it just needs a little more pampering. So here it is:</p>
<pre><code> Girl on Fire
When I reveal to people that I took jump rope lessons, they have a propensity to furrow their brows in bewilderment. Not soccer lessons, not dancing lessons, not piano lessons, just jump roping. The requirements of it was fairly self-explanatory, but the experience held wasn’t. Through jump roping, I met someone who taught me what school couldn’t in all of my 17 years. In the short time I spent preoccupying myself with this activity, she had engraved herself as a figure of inspiration. I always thought her approach to life was the one I wished to model mine after. She defied what I thought was impossible and to me she was the embodiment of an Alicia Keys song. She was that “Girl on Fire,” she was Lucy.
Lucy was one of those people who appeared passion-filled, even on the lousiest and most dreadful of days. She was a dark skinned athlete, unmistakably muscular and toned with definition as if she was a Nike advertisement in motion. Her optimism was enunciated by her smile and larger than life laugh. She could jump a thousand jumps in a minute (this isn‘t even an exaggeration), never letting her smile fade with her amount of concentration. She taught me how to jump rope with patience, even though I often got caught in between the rope, without ever doubting my abilities. My gratification was always kept secret because I was timidly shy as opposed to her who was alluringly gregarious. The day I learned she was battling brain cancer from another source, I was stunned with sadness but out of the highest respect. She didn’t look like she was “dying” or let her sickness emanate from her; she was a vital being who circumscribed the morbidity of her circumstances with her passion for jump roping. I always thought that made her admirable, her resilience and the way she consumed herself with every ounce of pride at what she did for a living.
I haven’t contacted Lucy for years, but the fascination for her never abided me. My reverence was so great that I had even puckered enough confidence to enlist myself in my 5th grade talent show, using jump roping as my “talent.” In regards to today, I still honor her impact by naming her as my inspiration. I feel destine to spread these “Lucy qualities” into my hobbies and work, never letting for a fleeting moment, my passion to go undetected or to deem ordinary. That answered the existentional question of what I would come to live for. My dreams would be so overtly known that to someone else I would come to stand for what Lucy always symbolized to me.
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