Ok here is my first draft of my essay. I’m using it for the first choice on the common app, i think it is significant experience or something. I am going to send it to Carleton College and Lawrence University.
3, 2, 1, GO! We ran, and then dove. It wasnt the dive into the cool water of the Red Cedar River that forever changed my life, but it was the log that was about a foot below the surface.
There was blood everywhere; It covered the front of my white t-shirt, my hands, and my face. It was as if somebody exploded a can of red paint right in front of me. I could feel that the front of my mouth had been pushed back a couple inches and I could feel my front teeth pushing down on the bottom of my mouth. My friends, who later told me I was laughing as I was spitting out teeth, helped me to safety.
Fast forward
Im on the blue stretcher in an ambulance racing the twenty or so miles to the hospital. Youre really lucky to be alive. The words of the man trying to put an IV in my arm in the bumpy ambulance echoed through my mind.
Pretty soon after that I was lying in one of those awesome hospital beds with the remote control that seems to have a button for everything. Unfortunately on this particular trip to the hospital I didnt get to fully enjoy the hospital bed experience because there was the possibility that I might be paralyzed and the fact that I had to call the nurse in every five minutes to use one of those dentist suction tubes for your spit. It always puts a smile on my face when Im spitting into that tube at the dentist, but when I was spitting a mouthful of blood into that suction tube in the emergency room, it just wasnt as enjoyable.
The oral surgeon came in. The good news was that I wasnt paralyzed. The bad news was that I had lost 6 teeth, and I would have to sit on that cold hard stainless steel bed for the next couple hours while they pulled my gums up and sewed them back in place. One of the last things my oral surgeon said before the surgery started was that if I had hit that log an inch or two higher or lower, there was a good chance I would have broken my neck, or been paralyzed.
One of my favorite practices of my high school career has been pulling out my four-tooth denture. It is always a great way to start a conversation and meet new people and is always ol reliable for putting a smile on peoples faces, including my own. While it is very funny, my denture also reminds me every day that I am fortunate to have had a wake up call. This wake up call was not some obnoxious alarm clock, but it was a voice. This voice told me everything I needed to know: Enjoy every moment of your life.
Ok well first of all just reading it right now, i see a couple sentences that are a bit too long and the last line sounds more like something the stoner kids say (life’s too short so live it up while you can) i don’t want it to sount like that, I want something that says something more like “make the most of every moment/do your best because you only get one try/life is delicate” so feel free to give your opinions.
thanks!
zach
