<p>I tend to be all for structure and organization, but I really like your essay, babs. It's truly not a formal essay, it's a story, and the flow is beyond natural. I really wanted to do that prompt because of the storyteller in me, but I ended up choosing the live the question prompt instead.</p>
<p>AHHHHHHHH. i think we should all wait until the RDers finish before posting essays...right?</p>
<p>i'm choosing the road story option and i'm writing about a fictional road, but i don't really know what the story going to mean. i'm just writing as ideas spew out. its a very different approach than babs and i should be alright, right?</p>
<p>Not alright tbh but I would have to read the overall essay. But generally, you are not going to have a good essay unless there's a focused and concise point you want to make. You are not writing a book in which you spew out all the info you can. No, you are writing a 1-2 page essay that should zero in on a few concise points so as to focus the attention of the admissions officers and keep them engaged thoroughly. Go deep not wide. Not a sexual reference.</p>
<p>well its about this blackhole that affected some street and the only thing i see that it shows is all the crazy ideas in my head.</p>
<p>lol. omg . I hope you are not on something when you are writing this. If you want, I can help you take a look at it to give you my impressions, just pm.</p>
<p>these essays are making me feel really dumb.. :(</p>
<p>^ fear not! Here comes my rather bland in comparison one :)
This was the optional essay for favourite whatever. </p>
<p>"I Wish I Were a Bollywood Movie"</p>
<p>Scene 1: She runs to him in a lush hilly meadow, skies so blue it was as if Crayola decided to throw up on it. Dramatic music ensues as they make their way closer to each other. Her dress/shawl/extremely long piece of fabric blows in the wind; how she avoids getting strangled by material the viewers will never know. They finally meet, but do not kiss. Instead, they decide that a little game of hide and seek behind the conveniently located nearby tree would be a better sign of their love for one another. And so they play, and they hide, and they seek until the last beat of the epic song that began with their run. End scene.</p>
<p>The sheer cheesiness of the scenario illustrated above doesnt tell the story of a particular movie; it tells the story of the million or so produced by old Bollywood. Every. Single. Year. Watch any classic Bollywood movie, and youll find yourself at the intersection of epic love stories, dramatic tears and into a utopia where the hero always survives.<br>
People claim that its merely just a musical, that its too cheesy to be realistic, and that their storylines are as old Warren Beatty himself. They discard it for whatever little artistic merit it has. But those are the exact same reasons why Bollywood movies top my all-time list of guilty pleasures (Shark Attack 3: Megadalon comes closely behind). </p>
<p>Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukerjee, Preity Zinta, Kareena Kapoor names that hold no significance in the minds of millions of Americans , but to me, symbolize passionate emotions and acting capabilities reminiscent of the Susan Luccis of our generation. I will be the first to admit that every time I sit through a three hour fest of culture, color and charisma, I make sure I stock up on eye drops to relieve my dried out tear ducts. An emotional catharsis of sorts. In fact, the ability of Bollywood romance movie to make me power cry (yes, that is a legitimate type of crying one that has my nose so red with a never ending supply of snot and eyes so swollen that its a miracle I can still see anything through these Asian eyes) has turned it into my biggest stress reliever mechanism. Forget therapy or yoga, Bollywood movies are the real deal. </p>
<p>Out of the many (and I mean many) Bollywood movies I have seen, Dilwale Dulhania LeJayange translated to The Brave-Hearted will take the Bride- remains the mother of all things splendidly cheesy, and definitely my favorite. Youve got guy meets girl, girl loathes guy, guy falls in love with girl and decides to travel all the way to India to stop an arranged marriage, ending with a fist fight coupled with exaggerated sound and a subsequent happy ending oh and dont forget those catchy song and dance numbers.</p>
<p>I dont care if people diminish my literary merit based on my interest in Bollywood movies. In fact, I dont think those same people realize that Dilwale was actually on several published lists of movies that audiences should see before they die. Whatever the case may be, Bollywood encapsulates what movie making should be about to bring some light of happiness to the masses, to make them believe that true love can and will conquer the day. Call it cheesy, but I promise, if you were to ever sit through one traditional Bollywood love story, youll come out wishing you were a Bollywood movie too.</p>
<p>Here's my optional essay and extended essay. I'm afraid the former was too long and the latter too short but here I go (just clicking submit on my supplement now :-D)</p>
<p>Optional Essay</p>
<pre><code>I like to think of myself as having a diverse taste in music. I can put my mp3 player on shuffle and hear some post-hardcore Chiodos, go to the mellow indie of Belle and Sebastian, suddenly get blasted by the grindcore Job for a Cowboy, and even enjoy the avant garde contemporary classical music of Keeril Makan. However, my three favorite bands (in no particular order) would have to be The Mars Volta, The Dear Hunter, and Between the Buried and Me. When I listen to these bands, I find this type of musical rollercoaster all on one CD or even one song! First theres The Mars Volta which fuses rock with jazz, blues, Latin beats, nonsensical time changes, electronica-esque effects, half-hour long improvisational sessions reminiscent of Led Zeppelin, and even shredding saxophone and trumpet solos to form a sound like no other band Ive ever heard. Then theres The Dear Hunter who has energizing rock songs that give way to something straight out of a church choir, switch over to something bouncy and reminiscent of polka, and then even go to an a capella choral piece and a brass ensemble waltz that makes me think of the circus. Finally, theres Between the Buried and Me: a band normally labeled as metal, tech metal, metalcore, thrashmetal, or any other term used for the most extreme music that makes your ears hurt. In between the metal they stick in just about every other style of music known. You can find everything from long jazz solos, to bluegrass sections, to mellow acoustic indie songs, to some styles I dont think there are even words for all while always going back some of the most hardcore music Ive ever heard. All these bands love to mix all the styles theyve ever enjoyed into one musical extravaganza that in my opinion never leaves room for any boredom when listening to them. Their philosophy on music is how I approach my life and my education. I like to study something new about physics one day, then learn about historical linguistics and the development of languages on Wikipedia the next day, and stick in time to read a good E. E. Cummings poem in between.
</code></pre>
<p>Particle Accelerator Essay</p>
<pre><code>So, imagine if everyone had a particle accelerator at their disposal! How cool would that be? You could smash together just about anything you wanted and discover the universe all in the comfort of your home. If I could, Id smash together my two greatest loves: guitar and physics. I know that initially sounds terrible, to smash together two things you love, but they would make something even better - superstring theory! With this new theory all the secrets of the universe could be unraveled.
Science has been struggling with this theory since it was first thought up. Little one-dimensional strings vibrating at different frequencies make up everything in the universe? Who knew physics could get weirder than it did when it showed us quantum mechanics? Were promised that this theory will once and for all unify all four forces and get us a full understanding of the universe though they cant prove it yet. I think they should just use my idea and put a guitar into the Large Hadron Collider and smash it with all of physics knowledge. Then theyd get their answers about string theory. Honestly though, these two things already show universal truth without being smashed together.
Physics describes our world; it already is the most fundamental of truths because it tells us how the universe works. As many authors and poets have told us, truth is beauty, and so physics is also fundamental beauty. It is truly beautiful how Quantum Mechanics, a theory that offers some of the most abstract and seemingly illogical conclusions, describes the properties of the subatomic world with more accuracy than any theory has ever described anything, or how with a few simple laws, we can predict the motion of the planets around the sun. Physics is our interpretation of the true beauty in nature: the fact that it is understandable and based on such simple and seemingly perfect laws and forces. Therefore, physics must be both truth and beauty.
In the same way, music is also beauty because it is the expression of true beauty within people. When we write music we express the truth within us, just as important to understanding the universe as physical truth. When we listen to music we interpret the truth and beauty that the composer has shown us. Not only that but listening to it even stirs up emotions that reveal new truths within us! We all know those songs that can bring us to tears and show us a part of ourselves.
Both physics and music are interpretations of fundamental truth and fundamental beauty in the universe. They help us understand different types of truth and beauty but it is all interrelated. Even without having to smash physics and guitars together we can interpret and understand the universe
although it would be nice if superstring theory did finally work out and reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics!
</code></pre>
<p>Hahaha, that Bollywood one is hilarious!! Dilwale was indeed a cheesy, but good movie. Oh, Shah Rukh and Rani are awesome.</p>
<p>My essays pale in comparison to some of these.</p>
<p>Haaaaa, string theory! XD</p>
<p><em>obligatory rim shot</em></p>
<p>I just submitted my UChicago supplement five minutes ago, so I guess I'll post my essay up.</p>
<p>I know this one's too short, but my Common App essay was approaching 1,000 words and what I have answers the prompt, even if it's less than 300 words. (And even though the title is completely colorless.)</p>
<p>"A Street in Downtown Los Angeles"</p>
<p>Lights. As far as the eye can see – lights. Red taillights make the wet asphalt streets bleed. In a robotic voice, flashing neon signs scream the same tired message: GIRLS … GIRLS … GIRLS. The street is alive. The people, its playthings. </p>
<p>A streetlight throws down a ray of electric sun. A man holding an umbrella walks by, momentarily illuminated before he shuffles into the darkness once more. His shoes leave a watery footprint. There’s a kind of rhythm to this place. Red … green … yellow … red … GIRLS … GIRLS … GIRLS … and the people shuffle on.</p>
<p>And the buildings! There’s something both majestic and tragic about these old crumbling towers. Above, incredible brick relics of pre-war architecture, geometric and haunting; below, the roar of buses, the bustle of shoppers, and signs, signs, signs! Still, there’s no denying the beauty, albeit a sad and haunting kind – it’s a shame about the smell. That putrid stink that rises up out of the alleys – the fumes from mingling urine and rotting compost. It rises above the area like mist on a foggy morning.</p>
<p>A door opens, a flash of red, and somewhere behind the saxophone’s whine, a piano floats on the wind. A couple stumbles out, the music stops, and a greasy cup entreats them for change. There’s never a moment of silence here. The clinking coins, whizzing cars, shuffling feet, and buzzing lights all blend into a monotonous hum, punctuated by the occasional impatient car horn or indignant “Go to hell!”</p>
<p>And the people shuffle on.</p>
<p>I answered the live the question essay.</p>
<p>“I don’t know. I’ll see how things play out.”
“But you have to have some clue as to what you want to do for the rest of your life… don’t you?”
“Nope. I’m going to live first and see where life takes me.”</p>
<p>I’ve decided that I do not need to know. I look around at my peers, all highly competitive, goal-driven, inspired, young individuals, and I see them, mostly, as young. However, these are the people who know. It seems as though they view life as a multiple choice test, where there is an option that is right, and they just have to figure out which one it is. Now, don’t think I’m on some high horse looking down on them from years of wisdom; the years simply aren’t there. I’m seventeen years old. Over half of my life has been spent pretending to see…nay, seeing rip-chords from which my action figures were beginning their descent to attack the evil Lord Zachary (my brother). So when I think about how my friends are planning when they would like to have children, I wonder how it is that just over a decade ago, they too were playing Chutes and Ladders or pretending what came out of their Easy Bake Oven was delicious. Nevertheless, when I ask my peers what it is they want to do with their lives, it is as though I were asking a bride how her wedding was going to go the day before the ceremony; some of them literally have a checklist! Leave high school with their associates, check. Finish college by age 20, check. Get into medical school, check. Complete residency and get married, check. And the list goes on and on. The one thing that I don’t get, and I think about it every time I’m asked about my future, is how I’m supposed to know what I want to with the rest of my life, when I’ve had so little time to actually live.</p>
<p>So living is what I’m trying to do. Because I’m only trying to get the most out every situation I’m in, as a teenager, I love nothing more than participating in random teenage hijinks with my best friends. Because that is life. In fact, I have proof that that is what life is! When you were a child and you talked to you grandparents, what stories did they tell you? Did they talk about their crappy job they got in ’45? Of course not! Your grandpa told you about the time he and Jimmy Walker stole the neighbor’s tractor and ran it into the creek. And your grandma told you about how she met Cyrus, her first crush. When they were looking back on their lives to choose which part if it to divulge to their grandkids, they often chose the stories of them as teenagers. Out of all the memories that they have, the ones they most often impart to the people that they hope will remember them later are the ones of random, teenage hijinks. Now, I don’t know about you, but I trust my grandparents (and most other grandparents), and I trust their judgment as to the best part of life. Because who would know it any better?</p>
<p>I’ve found that in all the living that I’ve been doing, I don’t have time to worry about the future. I mean, I’m not some hippie living in the Haight-Ashbury that does whatever he pleases on any particular day. What I do mean is that I do things that I enjoy for the simple reason that I enjoy them. I decided that I wanted to know more the history of thought, so I took a philosophy class at my local community college this past summer. Now, I don’t think I’ll be a philosophy major, but the weekly writing topics allowed me to rediscover my love of writing. Then, a newfound interest in the Harlem Renaissance led me to read works by Langston Hughes, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and essays by W.E.B. Du Bois. This wasn’t an assignment for one of my classes, and it didn’t earn me any points, but it was something that I wanted to learn about, and trust me, I got a lot more out of it than I did memorizing the 27 Amendments and the seven articles of the Constitution. </p>
<p>Because I am not taking myself so seriously, it seems to me as though I enjoy what I do more than many of my peers. When I find a new passion, such as photography, I am able to channel much of my time into it. I can make something my hobby and not worry that it is unrelated to my career path. Because I find the time put into working so gratifying, I don’t feel as though I need an award to justify my pursuits. Plus, when I reach a setback, it isn’t earth-shattering. If I decide that I hate chemistry, then I don’t have to worry about suffering through organic chemistry as part of my pre-med requirements. Because I have yet to set my sails, I don’t have to worry about which direction the wind is blowing.</p>
<p>So, when it comes to answering the question all teenagers are asked around this time in their lives, I’m not worried about not having an answer. By living the question (or, more simply, by living), I have, for now, found what I want for the rest of my life: happiness.</p>
<p>this is my favorites essay. I chose to write about my favorite crayons. </p>
<p>Red wax pencils glide across a hot glass surface. It is the best (and therefore my favorite) writing experience. I had used wax pencils before (on Petri dishes and normal glass containers, and on paper, much like a crayon), but when I touched my red wax pencil to the hot surface of the agar container, it was like… well, like the first time I used a dry-erase marker. It made me feel like an artist. You see, wax melts (obviously), so when you’re writing on a hot surface, the pencil glides across the surface, literally, like a hot knife through butter. Don’t get me wrong, I detest microbiology. But it rekindled my love for wax writing utensils and hot writing surfaces, and for that, it will always have a soft spot in my heart (albeit a microscopic one, pun intended).</p>
<p>When my brother and I were little, we found a hot plate in the garage, and thought it would be fun to play with. Don’t worry, we didn’t burn down the house, or send anybody to the hospital with a third degree burn; what we did was far more amazing. We would take used crayons that were too short to work effectively and place them on the hot plate, let them melt just a little bit, and then twist them into a single, multi-colored crayon. They were the best crayons. Imagine, back when you were little, how excited would you have been to use the crayons that you made yourself. The crayons were better after we combined them than they were when they came out of the Crayola factory. Just as your mom’s Chicken Noodle Soup will always be the best, or as your Chatty Kathy doll was better after you added your own make-up design to her, these crayons were better because my brother and I had made them. For my brother and me, this ideal of having a multicolored crayon was worth much time spent in experimentation. I mean, the crayons we created never did work. Apparently after the wax melts and re-hardens, it becomes extremely brittle, so as soon as we would try to draw something, the crayons would break and crumble. Still, it let us imagine, experiment, and test something that, looking back now, was really quite silly. But the silliness of it isn’t the point (because everything you do as a child is silly). The point is that my brother and I were able to work together, and that is what the red wax pencil gliding over a glass filled with hot agar reminded me of.</p>
<p>Thus, some ten to twelve years later, standing in a micro-lab, holding a stab of C. freundii, I remembered this childhood scene when my brother and I didn’t live two hours away from each other. I remembered a time when my brother didn’t have criminal charges against him that had his soccer scholarship in question. I remembered the house that I lived in for twelve years that is now sitting empty waiting to be foreclosed upon. So when I got home for summer break, I immediately began to dig in the old boxes from my childhood until I found my favorite crayons: the multi-colored crayons that my brother and I had made. Actually, I’m not sure if what I found was them or not, because, much like our relationship since then, the crayons were broken and crumbled, sitting dusty in a plastic bag. But these were close enough: my favorite crayons.</p>
<p>joonieballoonie, I love your essay. The short ones are somehow always some of the best.</p>
<p>My essays are not nearly as good or as creative as some posted here, but I wasn't entirely disappointed with them, so here goes:</p>
<p>Watchmen
(or, How I Learned to Treat Superheroes Like They Were Not So Super)</p>
<p>The year is 1987. The twelfth issue has been released by DC Comics. Alan Moores Watchmen, framed as a reflection of Cold War anxieties, has come to its apocalyptic end. That same year, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed. The Soviet premier Gorbachev sees an end to the Cold War. </p>
<p>The year is 1991. The Cold War is over, but Watchmens legacy is untainted. We had averted nuclear holocaust, but Alan Moore (the writer) and Dave Gibbons (the illustrator) had changed the superhero genre forever. </p>
<p>I had never been a big fan of superhero comics (or graphic novels, whatever). The genre seemed crass, a perversion of the novel. I felt that they were better suited to flying around on movie screens than in bounded form. </p>
<p>When I decided to try Watchmen, my assumptions were smashed. Set in an alternate reality America where Nixon still reigns in the 80s, Watchmen has a brutal psychological realism which I didnt expect. Superheroes are, with one exception, normal people going around in costumes and fighting crime. So, understandably, they have serious issues. Some do it to fulfill sexualized cravings for violence. Others are in the business to impose their rigid moral codes, gain celebrity, or profit off the plucking. One of the characters rapes another; yet another of the superheroes is impotent and in a mid-life crisis. Moore doesnt treat these issues lightly or overdramatize them to the point where theyre ridiculousthey have serious conviction. The existence of superheroes also has effects beyond a Gotham City or Metropolis. Their actions affect world politics, create merchandising lines, cause protest. (And with good reason. Heres an example: the Comedian, the most right-wing character, actually kills off Woodward and Bernstein an action secretly paid for by, guess who, the Nixon government.)</p>
<p>Moore and Gibbons turn the mediums advantages completely on their head. In between chapters, Moore inserts written textsinterviews, excerpts of books, a research paper on owls, psychological fileswhich commentate on the characters and the world. The same meta-textual stuff happens within the constraints of normal chapters, too: an incredibly dark pirate comic [in this world, pirate comics have outlasted superhero comics since the dawn of actual caped crusaders] is interspersed with the main story arc. What sinks in slowly is that the pirate comic parallels the plot, especially in the actions of one of the characters.</p>
<p>Because of the intricate histories and all the other meta-things that Moore and Gibbons put in, Watchmen demands to be reread. Only through rereading could I figure out repeated motifs, connections, foreshadowing, historical/sociological subtext. Rereading Watchmen doesnt dim any sort of emotional intensity, either. Moore and Gibbons focus less on plot [though the plota murder mystery that turns into a grander kill-all-superheroes conspiracy turns into mass destructionis still pretty awesome] and more on the depth of characters. Consequently, each time I read Watchmen, I sink deeper and deeper into the throes of paranoia, love, anger, and anguish that the superheroes feel. Watchmen becomes to me less a comic about pretend-superheroes, less even a parallel for the insecurities of the age, and more a terrific study of human beings. </p>
<p></p>
<p>Why Chicago?</p>
<p>I knew I wanted to visit. I just had to figure out when. </p>
<p>Why not go there when its really cold? my older brother asked. </p>
<p>But, I protested, I want to see all the trees on campus, while theres actually color!</p>
<p>Soon, I understood why my brother had suggested early February as the best time to visit the University of Chicago. I still had this deep satisfaction walking through the campus, even while it was dreary and slushy outside, even with my fingers and face numbed by the winds. The gargoyles and Gothic architecture looked even more awe-inspiring in the cold darkness than in the bright October when we returned to Chicago for a second time this year (when the trees were, yes, colorful). If I liked Chicago at its worst, then I would know the college suited me. [Or perhaps vice-versa. Im still not sure about the underlying mechanisms behind student/college attraction.]</p>
<p>So I decided to make the best of both visits: Id savor all the classes I possibly could. Writing this, Im not sure how many classes I visitedeight or nine?but each one stirred my minds innards about. Since I have a lot of interests and am totally undecided on what to do with my life, I checked out everything from Ted Cohens Literature and Philosophy to Margaret Mitchells Introduction to the New Testament. Even when I was totally lost as to what they were talking about, I was fascinated. But I think what piqued my interest most was Richard Westermans Power, Identity, & Resistance. Professor Westerman divided the class into small groups to discuss The Wealth of Nations. In the group that I sat in on, everybody contributed to the discussion. Even the quietest guy spoke up to interject something that I reasonable inferred, without having read Smith, was smart and probing. (This was topped off by witty repartee between the professor and a girl in my group.) I felt like this was why Id love the Core system, because I could engage with other students and professors while figuring out societally- and philosophically-meaningful texts. </p>
<p>During my second visit in the fall, I overnighted at Henderson House in Pierce Tower. So far, the classes, professors, and campus had been great, but I wasnt sure what to expect from the students. I was comforted: everybody was friendly, unpretentious, and interesting. I saw Fritz Langs M on my hosts bookshelf and heard about his friends interest in Joseph Campbell. But intellectual interests didnt dominate every part of the Hendus lives. We played squash, watched a (pretty intense) inter-house soccer game, and discussed the misfortunes of impending college applications. The atmosphere was one of active camaraderie</p>
<p>Before I get too stuck in personal ramblings, let me discuss another aspect of Chicago I found fantastic: lengthily-named majors. </p>
<p>Imagine this scenario: youre on an airplane, sitting next to a stranger. The stranger asks you what youre doing with your life, as they tend to do. </p>
<p>Oh, Im a college student at the University of Chicago.</p>
<p>And then, of course, the inevitable Whats your major?</p>
<p>Im a double major in Laws, Letters, and Society and the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>I cant think of a much better dialogue! Of course, Im not just interested in the possibility of temporarily stupefying total strangersI realize that the opportunity wont come oftenbut also in crafting an interdisciplinary focus to my studies. Both majors, along with others like Studies in the Humanities or Comparative Human Development, offer an easy solution to the inability to intellectually stifle myself to one discipline: combine a bunch of them together and examine the stuff that gets stuck in the middle. </p>
<p>Which, I think, may explain my larger attraction to UChicago: Id like to get stuck in the middle of it all. Whether this would be getting involved in the community [Here Ill get in some last-minute shout-outs. Fire Escape Films? I need to actually learn how to make films in order to become a film director. Euphony? Ill be an editor, a writer, just get me involved in the process of making a magazine again!] soaking up the curriculum, burying myself in the snow, or simply chilling in the dorms with fellow UChicagoans, I feel like getting stuck in UChicago (OK, maybe minus the snow part) would be both a privilege and a challenge. </p>
<p></p>
<p>"At present you need to live the question."
Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from the German by Joan M. Burnham.</p>
<p>Eleven years old and intelligent beyond her years, Isabella Montague waits for a new victim to toy with inside a mansion that has just seen its lord and lady murdered by their own daughter. The victim soon arrives: Grendel Redfield, thief of memories. </p>
<p>What follows is a supernatural battle where both characters reveal their deepest secrets. As the fight inches into every room of the house, Isabella takes implements of torture, paintings, and even the grand piano and uses them as weapons against Grendel. But the battle ends in stalemate. Grendel vanishes in a portal of space-time, leaving Isabella exhausted and her thirst for blood unsatisfied.</p>
<p>Had she been toyed with by a much stronger being the whole time? </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The passage above doesnt summarize a short story or an excerpt of a novel.</p>
<p>Instead, it examines a duel: a mano-a-mano expression of repressed, writerly masculinity. Duels were one aspect of roleplaying in the GameFAQs.com Roleplaying and Fanfiction discussion forum. (Roleplaying was our elegant term for collaborative writing.) High schoolers and college kids across the world, from America to Japan, honed their writing skills here. </p>
<p>Duels usually included or drew from high fantasys staples: magic, knights in shining armor, hideous monsters, the works. Two duelists took turns posting their characters actions, weaving the threads of what essentially became a short story. Deciding the winner of a duel was a subjective process. Impartial outsiders might judge the duel on a numerical or written scale based on creativity, style, grammar, and other criteria. Sometimes the duelists figured out the winner themselves. On a few occasions, like in the battle between my Ohioan friend Adam (Grendel) and me (Isabella), a duel was fought for narrative purpose. We had stowed away characters and plots in our heads. Now we developed them in the public eye. </p>
<p>I began roleplaying in middle school and continued up into my sophomore year. Parents and friends unaware, I toiled away at duels in my free time. On bus rides home from school, I imagined strategies or developed new arenas. </p>
<p>Upon deeper reflection, these duels werent just diversions for a kid occasionally bored at home. They were mental/creative/literary exercises. I began wondering about writing, my created worlds, and my characters: How could I improve? How do I think up what to write next? How could I figure out a girl with a dark past? </p>
<p>In response to my own questioning, my paragraph-long responses became pages, my sentence structures became more complex, and my vocabulary expanded. During the Isabella-Grendel duel, I used the house to her advantage, and static objects came alive. (Paintings become haunted spirits waiting to escape their cruel misery by attacking intruders of the mansion.) I used flashbacks throughout the duel to create family history for the initially undeveloped character. (Isabella argues with her father on pride and her mother on the immutability of death.) I learned from other writers, both from the roleplaying community and authors I read. (Hints of Poes murderers drip into Isabellas story.)</p>
<p>Other questions, like Isabellas at the end of her duel, lingered only to be answered in my thoughtsAdam and I never dueled with the same two characters again. In my head, Isabella and Grendel would fight again, become lovers, or team up to save the world. Their imagined stories flashed by like film reels torn apart and begun anew every few minutes. Even though I knew these ideas may never come to fruition, the process of springing them to life in my mind was both refreshing and energizing. </p>
<p>The world around me had changed into a vessel from which I saw new ideas springing up at every turn. I became a more careful listener, observer, and reader. Dialogue in real lifeor how certain weapons were depicted in the Lord of the Rings filmsor the madness of R.L. Stevensons Mr. Hydeassisted my own expeditions across imagination. </p>
<p>To answer my questions about my characters, I quietly asked questions to the world. For the sake of the duel, my characters, my writing, my self, I lived out these questions. Whether written on a page or etched into my brain, the questions would then become a part of me.</p>
<p>Joonie and mbp, I really like your essays</p>
<p>Me gusta, my essay explored the same thing you did. Well at least in my head, it was much less personal and alot more philosphical look at the nature of man to constantly question instead of just experience.</p>
<p>But I'm hoping they get the jist out of it.</p>
<p>Anyway like I said I like yours. And the one posted on the last page before you.</p>
<p>It was in reference to living the question.</p>
<p>Bamboozler I really like your essays. The Isabella one definitely fits the 'creative' criteria.</p>