College Application Letter

        Who taught Albert Einstein to do math? That was me. Who taught Michael Jackson to do the moonwalk? That was me. One does simply walk into Mordor. I am that one. The sun does not burn me, I burn the sun. When it comes to stare downs, I've won more than I could count. Against statues. I also pride myself greatly in the fact that my teeth are perfectly straight.
       Once I looked Medusa in the eye, and she turned to stone. My vocal range is 12 octaves. On a lazy Sunday, I run laps around the planet. My abilities are many, one of them being that I can turn water into wine. I have been on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Six times. Salvador Dali wishes he could paint Surrealism as well as I can. I make award winning Kraft Dinner.
       The flu has to get Pascale shots once a year. I wrote songs for The Beatles. I wrote The Bible.  Last summer I walked through the Sahara Desert in a Gorilla suit, and lived to tell the tale. Lighting does not strike me. I strike lightning. My only mistake? Thinking that I made one. Yet, I have still not gone to college.

                                                                        Unprepared

As I enter the room, I am caught in the hustle of my many peers hurriedly trying to find their assigned desks. After I make my way through the swarm, I find my desk and sit down. I hear a man's nasally voice through the microphone, going over the rules we've all heard so many times before. Finally, he shouts "Begin!" and the clock begins to count down. As I look down at my paper, fear courses through me as I feel my heart begin to speed up. I am filled with regret as I think of all the time I'd wasted doing nothing, when I could have been studying. In my mouth remains the bitter after taste of coffee, which I'd had earlier, with the hope that it would help me to think. If anything, it's made my situation worse. Someone is clicking their pen, another tapping their foot on the wooden floor. I feel as if it’s slowly driving me insane.  My hands are shaking as I nervously play with my hair, though the feeling of my soft hair twining around my fingers offers some comfort. I smell my own sweat, it slowly making me more and more uncomfortable as the warm liquid pools underneath my sweater.  I desperately try to think, but I feel as though my mind has gone blank, that any small piece of information I might have known has left me completely. As I reach for my pencil, I know that these next few hours are going to be the longest I'll ever endure in my life.

The Crickets Have Arthritis

The Crickets Have Arhtritis

         In Shane Koyczan's poem, "The Crickets Have Arthritis", Shane describes the lessons he learned from staying in a hospital room with a 9 year old boy who had cancer. A main theme revealed from this poem is that even though someone may be young, they may be wise beyond their years, and that we can learn a lot from those who are younger than us. Shane described the boy as "thirty year old man with a nose bleed being lowered into a shark tank," showing how mature the boy was, even when using profanity. Shane says that if cursing is what'll help the boy through his illness, "he wants to teach him to swear like the devil was sitting there taking notes with a pen and a pad". Finally, he talks about when the boy especially proved his maturity by telling him that "the worst part about being sick is that you get all the free ice cream you ask for", but the worst part is "realizing that there's nothing more they can do for you."

Pretty

        In "Pretty", by Katie Makkai, the speaker describes the way that society truly defines the word "pretty," talking about how all girls grow up hoping to be pretty, or at least rich, which is "almost pretty if you know where to shop." All girls want to be wanted, they want to be perfect like the girls on the magazine covers. The entire poem is an extended metaphor, the speaker sarcastically making "synthetic" equal "pretty". Katie knows that all girls, including herself at a younger age, believe that the greatest asset they could possibly possess would be a "marketable facade", and that most girls don't care to be smart, or even real, as long as they are "pretty".

     "Well," I began, "I realized, just as I walked through my front door, that I'd left my homework in my locker."
     Mr. Van Camp remarked, "Couldn't you have just gone back to the school to get it?"
      "I couldn't have!"
     He looked skeptical."Why not?" he asked.
     "As I was walking across the field," I replied, "I encountered a rather large chicken."
     "How large?" he inquired.
     I was careful not to look him in the eye. I knew if I dared to, all would be lost. "It weighed 200 pounds!"
     His hard expression faded into a smile. He exclaimed, "It must have been Gertrude! Is she still out there?"
     "I believe so," I answered, confused.
     "Thank you so much for ending the search for my beloved pet. She's been missing for a year! You'll recieve a guaranteed A in my class!"

    

Bluffing

In the short story, "Bluffing", Gail Helgason tells about a young couple, Liam and Gabriella, who go on a hike in the woods and find themselves in a bear encounter. Liam foolishly runs away and is attacked, but later he informs Gabriella that he did it on purpose. While lying in his hospital bed, Liam tells Gabriella he ran away so that the bear would chase him, instead of hurting her. Should Gabriella believe that he would have performed such a selfless act for her? It doesn’t seem so. First of all, it is not proven that Liam is very committed to her. When Gabriella is anticipating signing the lease for their house, Liam tells her “[he’s] gonna head down South.” He is also quite vain, and it’s hard to believe that he would have purposefully have gotten the bear to go after him, with the possibility of it ruining his looks. Before the accident, “Liam’s thick black hair was cut as fashionably as ever”, and “[he] truly believed that “one day he would have his photo in glossy magazines for high-tech outdoor gear.” Lastly, Liam is very proud, and “[isn’t] always willing to learn from people who might know more than he [does]”. Would a proud person like him admit to making a mistake, like running away from a bear, or would he cover it by saying it was to save someone? Gabriella will never know. Either way, it doesn’t look like Liam’s going anywhere, other than the hospital for checkups, now.

                                                           A Reminiscence of the Past

A woman, more than a century old, is sitting in her rocking chair. Her skin, made of leather, sags and wrinkles, creating intricate patterns all over her face and hands. The frazzled hair on her head protrudes from her large hat, the zigzags of grey ending just below her chin. Despite her harsh looks, she is kind. In her hand she possesses a cigarette, the smoke billowing and dancing up towards the sky in swirls of white. It reminds her of her past. As she watches from her chair, her two young granddaughters frolic on the front lawn. A fleeting thought of puppies that’ve just learned to walk, that have fully realized the freedom of movement, passes through her mind. She thinks back to when she was young, when walking and breathing were simple tasks. She reminisces about the times when she used to frolic with her sisters, full of energy and life. Although fully aware that her time is coming to an end, she does not take the life that she has for granted as she used to. As she reapplies her fading pink lipstick with a feeble hand, her granddaughter calls to her. For the penultimate time, she sets down her cigarette, and her hard expression relaxes into a smile.