After discussing college essays with C this afternoon, I was curious enough to reread my Common Application essay when I returned home.
In retrospect, next time I am not even going to bother looking at my application again after I have turned it in.
There were no glaring mistakes, but while I was reading it, I kept thinking to myself, "Oh, I should have developed this more," or "Oh, I should have cut this sentence out." I should have known better, really -- I already know I am a perfectionist, so why bother setting myself up for more stress when I have already turned it in?
On another note, I am becoming such a slacker. This cannot be a good thing. I am going to die when I have to start all over again in college.
About a week ago, Rogue and her mother brought me to volunteer at this monastery up in a hill about a half-hour away from where we live. It was Elders' Day, which meant the nuns and other volunteers at the monastery organized a sort of banquet for at least a hundred elderly people. As someone who grew up without churches and temples, I was completely lost.
Nevertheless, it was there that I realized how little interaction I have with the elderly. My maternal grandmother and paternal grandparents do not live in the United States -- in fact, none of my relatives live in the United States. My neighborhood is fairly young. I do not volunteer in nursing homes or senior centers.
At one point, I had to help lead an elderly woman to the restroom. I waited nearly thirty minutes (granted, the line was long) before she finally reappeared for me to lead her back to the main hall. I think that was the first time mortality truly dawned on me. I take going to the bathroom in less than five minutes for granted. I take being able to walk swiftly across fifty yards for granted. There are so many things I take for granted now that will be gone in half a century.
I may be a dreamer now. I dream of getting into Stanford. I dream of becoming a doctor. I dream of writing and publishing, of making it big in the literary world. I dream of meeting that somebody who I would be willing to die for.
What is my nightmare? To wake up one morning when I am eighty and discover that my castle of hopes is nothing but a collapsed house of cards.
2 comments:
wow this is profound
We read Mrs Dalloway the past two weeks, and we were supposed to read The Hours after. We're not going to anymore though because we have to move on to other required readings =/ but we watched a little bit of The Hours in class, and I almost cried. It was so good..
I didnt like Virginia Woolf in the beginning cuz Dalloway reading was a bit confusing. Now I love it because it presents such a spontaneous, real portrayal of all the characters, and I feel like I can relate to all of them.
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