<p>this thread is awesome</p>
<p>If these sorts of debates are representative of what happens at Uchicago, I don’t know whether to be frightened or fascinated…</p>
<p>Well, this is getting kind of nasty isn’t it, but it seems we have a winner. Now someone new “succeeds in looking EXTREMELY PRETENTIOUS.” </p>
<p>(On a side note, don’t you wish there was more Mythology in NAQT? It’s seriously neglected. Oh well.)</p>
<p>Best of luck to all of you, I thought the essay in question was beautiful, and that the essay prompt is an opportunity to do many things other than be introspective. I personally wrote my Find X topic about pirates (the intended essay according to the prompt suggestor) and I assure you there was nothing introspective about it. I haven’t received a decision yet, and I don’t know whether either side of this argument has, but if anything maybe the Adcom will be impressed by both of your creativity… and zealous.</p>
<p>No, I actually neither need nor want your help in either reading or understanding your stupid <strong><em>ing essay about phenomenological skepticism and the limits of understanding, or whatever other trite theme you decided to mar with your wannabe-Montaigne introspective </em></strong>**. I will grant that such an essay would succeed in communicating something about the author – namely, that he is a fatuous, dilettantish gasbag who dresses his banal thought in flimsy “east meets west” synthetic gimmicks that I’ve seen done thousands and thousands of times.</p>
<p>The fact that you think such a contrived synthesis, within the constraints of a supplemental essay, could be “unique,” “profound,” “intellectual,” or “provocative” tells me everything that I need to know about you and your personality, because there are scores upon useless scores of cloned translucent bottom-feeders just like you at every “prestigious” institution of higher learning in this society. If the existence of a drooling prize animal, bred to compete on meaningless quiz teams and beg for approval from his institutional masters suffices for you, then I suppose it would be wrong of me to expect much of a lesser man. But it would appear that your vaunted quiz-team knowledge utterly failed you because, as I stated in my previous post, which statement you inevitably failed to address, your only factual criticism of Augustus’ essay was inane, and the argument you built on it was inconsistent.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the “hand-written letter” that you seem to be offering sans merit scholarship as proof of your exceptional capacities sounds wholly unimpressive to me, and if you really can’t see the inherent bias in their evaluation of you at this point, then you do not deserve to name-drop Husserl. </p>
<p>I find it hilarious that, in the absence of evidence either way, you singled out as untrue my claim that I have “friends at Harvard.” Either your friends aren’t intelligent enough to get into such a school or you don’t have friends, but your unwillingness to believe such an unremarkable claim reeks of psychological projection either way.</p>
<p>You’re right; it has nothing to do with conformist post-modern thinking or a revolt against the idea of form. You’re just a pathetic, petty, petulant intellectual heifer whose entire existence will be sacrificed on the altar of institutional prestige when you are detained to be a myopic academic specialist somewhere, in some inconsequential field of the humanities. You felt the need to condescend to my friend not out of ideological thinking, but out of pretentious spite, which is all you really have to your name.</p>
<p>You’re reducing his application to one essay of four, and whether this particular essay is “impressive” or not is much more subjective than you’d like to admit. I don’t trust your stated qualifications because I’d expect good communication skills from someone who has spent as much time as you have with literature, and yet what I get from you is a series of syntactical knots tied with the limpid string of someone who needs to connect their thoughts after they think them. I’m actually going to go ahead and trust my professors, who are in a league far beyond yours, to see the merit in what Augustus produced.</p>
<p>You obviously don’t know Greek or you would have boasted about it in your last post, and trust me, kid, if you haven’t read Homer in the Greek, you have not read Homer. Because I have neither the inclination nor the time to write an essay on your behalf, I’m not even going to attempt an explanation of the enormous divergence of experiencing the respective Greek and English texts, in any translation.</p>
<p>It’s a good thing that I went to my top five LAC on a scholarship so that I could, among other things, learn ancient Greek and graduate a year early, with honors, into an MIT graduate program. Maybe if you hadn’t wasted your time and breath on dabbling in provincial knowledge, you could have recorded two piano concertos with a first-rate symphony orchestra, too, or some other thing with genuinely artistic aspirations.</p>
<p>But I’ll refrain from any further “intellectual cockwaving,” because if I were to consummate the act you’d probably sit down and cry with my **** looming over you, weak sister; you count for nothing in battle or in council.</p>
<p>Now, because you’re obviously incapable of learning from your betters, I’m done with you, which means that you place second in this thread, just like you did in your state competitions.</p>
<p>Shut the **** up.</p>
<p>lol.
10 char.</p>
<p>epic thread/argument.</p>
<p>(Bad pun???)</p>
<p>Hey guys look how big MY e-peen is
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That’s what this thread is for, right?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>|----------------------------------------------------|</p>
<p>Is there really only one essay posted for the third essay prompt? Well then, I’ll post mine. I liked it a lot. I hope you do, but seeing as there are like hundreds of essays here, no one will read it. I got in EA.</p>
<p>At the end of my junior year in high school, I had fallen in love. My crush was handsome, intelligent, and motivated. He was everything I had ever hoped for in a man. He also happened to be a dead cosmonaut. Yes, I had fallen in love with Yuri Gagarin, and the only thing that stood between us was a forty plus year span of time. It’s not like this was the first time I’d loved someone who lived beyond the boundaries of my era. There had been my favorite emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and the financially savvy Alexander Hamilton, but I knew Yuri was the one. Still that invisible border loomed there, making all attempts to meet him quite impossible. How would I dissolve that impediment? I set out to find a way.</p>
<p>I toyed with the idea of building a time machine, until I realized that my technological skills were not nearly advanced enough. My forays into Lego houses did not seem to provide the needed experience to build a machine so complex. Knowing that, I proposed that my friends on the school’s FIRST robotics teams should build one for me, given my constant support. The only responses I received were “impossible!” or “maybe later,” but adding more time seemed counterintuitive. It was all so unfair. Why had Bill Preston and Ted Logan received George Carlin’s attention and not I? Was I not excellent enough? But no amount of wishful thinking could change my circumstances.</p>
<p>The challenge still remained, and I needed to find a way to dissolve time without the help of a machine I was too lazy to build. It was then I remembered every terrible chick flick I had ever been forced to view. The power of love is the greatest solvent of all! It has dissolved monetary differences, ideological boundaries, even physical barriers. Surely, the power of love could dissolve time as well. If I started with that premise, then the fact that I had not already traversed those forty some years was proof that I did not love him enough. </p>
<p>How could I increase my love to the necessary level? I discovered the local apothecaries no longer carried Spanish fly, so my only option was to learn more about him as a person. I used my European History project as an excuse to research him, in hopes that new knowledge would encourage more affection. Every day after school, I spent a few hours reading my book on the Soviet Space program and scouring the Internet for information about my love. I grew to know him better as I learned more, and I grew to love him more. Still, I never seemed to pass the borders of time. I began to doubt my initial concept.</p>
<p>Every night, when left to my mind’s devices, I met Yuri a thousand times. Right before the mission, he described to me his desire to go to space, to experience what no man previously had encountered. He did not seem afraid, only excited by the prospect. A few years after he returned, I met him again. Jaded, he explained how fame had not treated him well. Flight was his passion and the USSR would no longer allow him it, lest he die. He had turned to the bottle, much to his wife’s distress. The day before he died, he overflowed with excitement. The government was beginning to let him fly again, at last. He would be flying tomorrow—a routine part of the training that only I knew would kill him. Despite my many mental encounters, I never had the pleasure of seeing him in person.</p>
<p>I suppose it had been a failure. The power of love had not actually dissolved time itself. Yet for some reason, I now felt like I was present as Vostok 1 rose into orbit. Maybe I had never physically achieved time travel, but I had been there. The gulf of time no longer seemed so vast. I had seen straight across it, overheard those involved. In my mind, all the barriers associated with time had been dissolved.</p>
<p>My voyage through time had taught me a great deal. Gagarin and I were old friends now. I had come to realize he was not my type, that my crush had deceived me into thinking him a different man. While I admired him deeply for the risk he took, I learned I did not love him. If the power of love had not broken down the boundaries of time, what had? I looked back to those first imagined encounters. They had occurred when I resolved to learn more and began my studies. It had been my knowledge of him as a person, of his motivations, of his desires, that had functioned as my time machine.</p>
<p>I will carry this knowledge for the rest of my life. Whenever I have any desire to meet a historical figure, I know how to dissolve the span of time between us. I must study their life, their choices, and their actions, and form a complete image of their personality. I can do this all without the robotics team or George Carlin. And I can promise that my adventures will be most excellent.</p>
<p>These essays make me feel terrible about myself. -___-</p>
<p>Accepted.</p>
<p>Find x.</p>
<p>x. </p>
<p>So, what is this thing called x? </p>
<p>x is the thought a person has while looking up at a clear blue sky. x is the thought a person has while talking to you. x is the personal goal a person strives to achieve. x is the one bad thing a person has done in the past. </p>
<p>x is a secret. </p>
<p>Every person possesses at least one secret, one x. </p>
<p>It makes sense, doesn’t it? </p>
<p>Every one of us has gone through many algebra classes thinking x is a number—an absolute answer a person can get to, no, an absolute answer a person should get to, understanding that the laws of mathematics dictate perfection. However, we forget that x is not a number, but an unknown, and it always remains as one. If one has found a numerical answer, then it no longer is an x, but merely a set of digits. Similarly for secrets, once revealed, it no longer is one. </p>
<p>x is then something that nobody else other than you can know. x is the one secret that you will never share. </p>
<p>Find x? </p>
<p>I’m sorry, I can’t.</p>
<p>Chemistry, for those of you that haven’t had the pleasure of studying the science, is ludicrous. The poor chemists that have tried relentlessly to create a standard discipline were constantly met with roadblocks. Everything works up until a certain point. Electrons joyously boogied in their diffuse clouds until you broke things down to an even smaller level, where perception and reality simply cease to coincide. Yet, those intrepid warriors kept on pushing deeper and deeper into the tumult, trying to find some semblance of meaning and order, beyond the cursory understanding we have now. It hasn’t been pretty. The answer is ugly, and the scientists have been left utterly disenchanted.</p>
<pre><code>My A.P. Chemistry teacher, a Ms. Eileen Labora, had an entire repertoire of aphorisms and idioms that all somehow fit the chaos that accompanied the course. In a lot of ways, Ms. Labora has a better grasp on things than many of these chemists. For what she lacks in acute academic knowledge of the subject she makes up for with practical thinking. One of my personal favorite “Labora-isms,” a precept that continues to govern my life, is “don’t get lost in the sauce.” Prerequisite of enrolling in advanced placement chemistry is taking a nice, long sojourn in the sauce. She asked each of us to just take a step back from the bedlam and not get caught up in the specifics. Her class, after all, wasn’t a class about perfectionism. Nor was it a class about getting the correct answer, which oftentimes was simply beyond reach. It was about the pursuit. Ms. Labora, sagacious and forward-thinking in ways that she may not even be conscious of, wanted us to take the dive and swim our way out, even if it meant landing on different parts of the pasta shore.
</code></pre>
<p>One of the intrinsic problems of humanity is the insatiable need for the “correct” answer. It’s human, all too human to seek out that x, that ineffable answer that will render our lives with meaning, purpose, and happiness. From a young age, we’ve been taught that enough hard work will yield that singular answer. It’s blind idealism, of course. The American Dream, for example, a nebulously defined archetypical answer, is virtually irrelevant and scarcely serves as the universal source of joy (just ask Jay Gatsby). Even when humans reach the absolute core of discovery, even when we unearth the answers we sought to find so dearly, those answers are mere distorted visages of our preconceived notions. What we view as our answers, our personal discoveries of El Dorado, only provide more room for regret. Einstein single-handedly created quantum mechanics, but even he rued the day he defined the relatively horrific Theory of Relativity when Truman gave the go-ahead to incinerate hundreds of thousands of people alive. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, I’d rather not find x. There is a particular mystique about it, an aura of uncertainty. More importantly, x is irrelevant. The conclusion, the answer, is almost always anticlimactic and underwhelming, and we often find that it wasn’t what we were searching for at all. The derivation, the excavation, the research, the pathway out of the sauce: that’s what truly counts. It takes a lot of moxie to face a problem and not try to find a universal, defined answer, but to relish the opportunity of fishing your way out of it. Finding x simply isn’t for me. While chemists continue to dive deeper into the marinara, I’ll enjoy my little nook on the far end of the pasta beach, satisfied with making my way out of the saucy madness. Life is too short to get lost in the sauce.</p>
<p>Essay Option 2. Dog and Cat. Coffee and Tea. Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye.
Everyone knows there are two types of people in the world. What are they?</p>
<p>Lights. Harmonica. Guitar. Lyrics. Crowd. Him.
Virtually unknown outside of Greenwich Village from 1961 to 1963, Bob Dylan was just another Woodie Guthrie imitator restricted to the many coffee houses and smoky clubs that inhabited the neighborhood. In October 1962, he played a typical gig at the Gaslight Caf</p>
<p>Poetry vs. Prose
Essay Option 2.
“Turn in your Portrait of the Artist books and pick up the poetry packets.”<br>
Those black words written on the whiteboard elicit two different reactions from everyone in my AP Literature class. Some groan, realizing that rather than just analyzing characterization and dialogue, they will now have to consider rhythm, rhyme, and meter. The other’s eyes light up; no longer will they have to spend hours reading chapter after chapter of seemingly wasted words, but they can instead analyze a few perfectly chosen words.<br>
The two different responses reveal more than just whether or not the students will be pulling out their hairs in the next few weeks. The different responses also show my classmates’ thoughts about the use of language.<br>
Those who groan and look petrified think that the only purpose of language is to convey ideas. For them, language is a tool to communicate thoughts and ideas from one person to another. These people value a piece of writing based on how clearly and efficiently it expresses the meaning behind the words. To the other starry-eyed half of the class, language is an artistic medium. Just like paint and clay, it is a way for artists to express their emotions and feelings about a subject. To them, language is not a tool for conveying an idea, but for enriching that idea.<br>
People who appreciate poetry enjoy the journey of discovering meaning in a poem as much as the actual meaning itself. They love spending hours analyzing a poem to discover a simple two-sentence message or theme. The not poetically inclined, however, view this lengthy analysis as a waste of time. For them, interpreting language is not about the process of discovering meaning but about the meaning itself. They calculate that if the same meaning, that took four hours to extract from the poem, can be derived from an essay in ten minutes then the essay is twenty-four times better.<br>
This distinction also mirrors how these two types of people live their lives. Just as those who love poetry love it for the process, they love life because of the journeys and not the destinations. They live every moment for the sake of living and take in each day one by one. They are the dreamers, vagabonds, and romantics. Their decisions are rash and based on what feels right.<br>
Those who ripped out their hairs when studying poetry are just the opposite. They go through life searching for definite answers. To them, a journey is useless if it does not lead somewhere productive. They live every day as a part of the grand plan. Each action is for a purpose. They are the lovers of math, the realists, and the rationalists. Their decisions are made only after careful analysis of each available option.<br>
At the beginning of that unit, I was expecting to pull out more hairs than anyone else would. I was the stereotypical, rational math lover. I love math because it allows me to use logic to come up with definite answers. I hated poetry because it took too long to understand. Yet, towards the end of the unit, I began to enjoy some of the process of finding meaning in poems. Through reading Tennyson’s “The Eagle,” I saw how poetic language can enrich and give feeling to the idea that is described. While reading Hamlet, I realized how rhythm and meter can increase the power of words beyond their implied meaning.<br>
While the unit did not inspire me to become the next Keats or Yeats, it did give me an appreciation for poetry. With this appreciation, came an understanding that not every action has to be made with a goal in mind. I learned that to succeed and survive in life, I need to set goals and search for answers. However, to enjoy life, I must look out the window and take in my surroundings as I am driving towards these goals.</p>
<p>Dog and Cat essay.</p>
<p>Divide the 6,900,000,000 Homo Sapiens Sapiens in this world into two categories.</p>
<p>In order to decipher this mind-boggling prompt, I decided to embark on a quest. As I sat in my little
corner of McDonalds, I carefully monitored the behavior of the people who passed. Maybe, I thought,
they can be divided by their gender? Behavior? Introverts or extroverts? Beverage Choice? Chicken
nuggets or sandwiches? All these categories initially seemed plausible, but between the introverts and
extroverts, how about the bipolar people? Between the chicken nugget and the sandwich, what about
the get-both-menus-option people? None of these options gave me the perfect breakdown that would
divide the massive amount of people into two clear-cut categories. Thus, after four hours of intense
observation of the homo sapiens sapiens species, I left, frustrated.</p>
<p>While driving back to my house, the cold air slipped through the windows and whispered to me that
winter was slowly encroaching. As I thought of winter, I realized that I had only seen snow three times in
my life. In fact, until 8th grade, I had never seen snow at all, since I had grown up in Latin American
countries. I then thought about my initial reaction to learning that every snowflake in this world is
different. As a kid, I could not believe it. The snow that fell in Alaska ten thousand years ago had a
different structure from the snow that will fall this winter and in the coming ones?</p>
<p>I then knew I had found an answer to the dog and cat prompt: Beyond the dog and the cat, a
plethora of animals such as lions, bears, and fish exist. I recognized that though coffee and tea are found
in many American homes, coffee and tea are not the only drinks present in the fridge. In fact, my fridge
holds a can of coke, a gallon of milk and a bottle of apple juice. The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye
capture the attention of many readers, but those two novels stand among other greats such as Robinson
Crusoe, Frankenstein, and Of Mice and Men. So maybe, man is not limited to only two different
categories, and after hours of intense epiphanies, I landed into a conclusion.</p>
<p>Ironically, perhaps, two kinds of people exist in our world: those who believe that mankind is limited to two groups, and those
who believe that mankind has 6.9 billion different groups, that is to say, men are like snowflakes: matchless in every characteristic and unique in their own properties, but alike when they melt.</p>
<hr>
<p>I wish I spent more time ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh im so nervous for friday AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH</p>
<p>Find x</p>
<pre><code> Robert Malthus, a highly influential scholar and rudimentary economist, predicted approximately two centuries ago that the forces of population growth would be destructive, and that population growth limited the ability of standard of living to increase. Malthus argument arose from the idea that natural resources are finite and cannot contribute infinitely to growth, and that the force of population would always push against the boundaries of natural resources, thus ensuring that most individuals would be forever subjected to living at subsistence level. Malthus wrote, The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.
Malthus was correct in this statement yet, I stand here, two hundred years later, as an average person, enjoying comforts and a standard of living far beyond the imagination of the wealthiest individuals of Malthus time period. And, during this same time period that standard of living has increased exponentially, the world population level has increased by more than a factor of six. However, I state clearly and accurately that Malthus was correct population increases have far exceeded the ability of raw natural resources and raw human labor to increase output. Given this, how have such tremendous increases in living standards been possible? What unknown variable exists that has allowed for such tremendous growth, growth far in excess of what could be possible accounting only for growth in raw inputs?
Over the past two hundred years, there has been growth in natural resources America and many other nations have expanded greatly, and the world has discovered new natural resources such as oil that have contributed to growth but these increases can hardly explain why Malthus wrote his theories on parchment with a quill and I am currently typing this essay on a computer made up of billions of transistors. Population growth can account for an increase in aggregate output, as more laborers certainly contribute to an increase in the size of the economic pie, but raw population growth does not contribute to a per capita increase in output, and in fact likely reduces per capita output as additional strain is placed on other inputs.
Thus, the variable that Malthus ignored has nothing to do with growth in the raw inputs of production as we have seen that such growth cannot account for the tremendous increase in living standards that we have experienced over the past centuries. Instead, this mystery variable must account for an astounding increase in the ability of society to extract additional production from a given level of inputs. This mystery variable the most important variable influencing growth over the past centuries, and perhaps the most important variable in the development of modern society is growth in technological progress, or productivity, which is defined as a measure of output per unit of input.
</code></pre>
<p>It must be stated that there are certainly other important factors of growth, particularly when studying the amazing growth in output over the past two centuries. Changes in the market structure of society that have moved toward free markets and free trade, as well as increased protection of private property rights, have certainly contributed to growth, but these are not long-term contributors to growth; it is not possible to consistently improve market structure in a way that will lead to growth. In addition, the accumulation of capital (goods used to produce other goods) is a significant factor in growth, although capital accumulation alone cannot explain continued growth in standard of living, as society experiences diminishing returns from capital just as it experiences diminishing returns from anything else. Thus, while there are certainly other factors involved in growth that must be examined and studied, growth in technological progress/productivity is the only factor that can account for sustained growth of the magnitude experienced over the past two centuries.</p>
<pre><code> I have found societys x, the factor that has shaped modern society from the relatively primitive society Robert Malthus lived in two centuries ago. Just as economic growth, as largely explained by technological progress, has been so important in developing society, so will growth in education and knowledge be important for me as an individual. As I sit here now, I am like society in the days of Malthus; the majority of my ability to produce is defined by the raw abilities that I have been granted by nature. The level of ability that nature has granted me is enough for me to produce at a level of subsistence, but little more. I cannot change the level of raw ability that nature has granted me, so, as society has over the past centuries, I must find a way to extract more from what I have been given. This search has led me to the University of Chicago, where I hope to be able to develop my intellectual capabilities and continue to show that, while the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, the ingenuity and creativity of the human mind is the most powerful force in the world.
</code></pre>
<p>I chose create your own prompt:</p>
<p>“‘Cause we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.” – Madonna
As Madonna so astutely noted in her 1985 hit, we are living in a material world. In what sense are you a material girl (or guy)? What item can you not live without, and why?</p>
<p>From a very young age, I expressed a love of calculators. I remember clearly the awe my dad’s calculator inspired in me. It was black with gold accents – but that wasn’t the best part. My father had told me once that it calculated in reverse Polish. I was beyond impressed with the little machine: not only did it speak a foreign language, but it spoke it backwards! I would do extra math problems just to have a reason to borrow it, and after the work was done I would sit at our pitted wood table, trying to coax the calculator into speaking with me.</p>
<pre><code>Even though I never did manage to communicate with the little machine, the calculator’s silence did not deter me. As I grew, so did the length of the problems I was asked to solve, and thus the need for a calculator. I loved the promise of certainty that the calculator offered: all I had to do was type in the data correctly – it would give me the correct value. I carefully observed the placement of parenthesis and decimals, so as to avoid confusing my calculator. I felt that a great task had been bestowed upon me: to provide the calculator with all that it needed to solve the problems. I was but a vessel of the little 10-numbered machine, a caretaker of its awesome calculating power.
</code></pre>
<p>Not all calculators are created equal, however. Throughout the years, I was the proud keeper of calculators in every shape and size, not to mention color. From basic blue four-functions to purple plastic scientific calculators, I tried them all and learned the pros and cons of each. Still, I’m not sure how I survived to the ripe old age of seventeen without my very own hot pink TI-84 Plus Silver Edition Graphing Calculator. Despite its paradoxical name, (a pink Silver Edition?) my little calculator has proven itself indispensible ever since its arrival from some far-off state, courtesy of UPS and EBay. </p>
<p>Perhaps little is not the best word for it. My calculator is full-figured. </p>
<p>Beneath its chunky exterior, however, there lies a wealth of knowledge that I have grown to believe I cannot live without. Although I do use my calculator for my Statistics class – it happily spits out random numbers and reminds me that “log” is a verb – it has grown to be so much more than a mathematical machine. </p>
<p>My calculator is my best friend. When I had to brave the horror that is standardized testing, it was there for me, pink and gleaming as always, reassuring me that everything was going to be ok. When I forget what I wanted to buy at the grocery store, all I have to do is press “ON” and there is my grocery list, safe and sound in big block letters. It solves my problems – mathematical and otherwise. After finishing my Stats homework, I can whip it out and do some calculations for my stressed out junior friends, reassuring them that, mathematically, it is highly improbable that getting one “B” will cause them to flunk out of high school. </p>
<p>Having established itself so thoroughly as my greatest tool and comrade, my calculator accompanies me everywhere. (Flying on a plane? Throw it in the carry-on, next to the Chap Stick! Headed to church? Toss ‘er in the purse along with the silenced cell phone!) I never know when a situation will arise that leaves me scratching my head and pining for my chunky fuchsia wonder machine, and as such, I never allow myself to be caught without it.</p>
<p>Eh, reading this again, I feel like it kinda blows. But here’s mine:</p>
<p>Essay Option 1: Find X
Finding Freedom</p>
<p>6:45 AM. The wretched cry of the alarm clock. You crawl out of your cocoon of blankets.</p>
<p>7:09 AM. In your business suit. Staring at the steamy mirror of your bathroom. Bags under your eyes. You pluck a white hair.</p>
<pre><code>7:16 AM. In your car. Swallowing the last of your bagel. You flip on the radio. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For by U2. You think of your old band in high school. A lump forms in your throat.
8:02 AM. In your cubicle. A chorus of chattering keyboards and ringing telephones. You ask yourself why you come back to the office day after day, to this job you never really wanted. It pays well, you assure yourself.
12:36 PM. On your lunch break. The usual bench in the usual park across the street. The usual turkey breast sandwich tastes like cement. You tap your foot and hum to that song—what was it called again? You and your band played it at your high school graduation. It’s been stuck in your head all day.
4:51 PM. Mike—your boss—calls you into his office. He shakes your hand. You are promoted. As you step out, James congratulates you. You fake a smile. Somehow you don’t care.
5:48 PM. You scrawl your signature absentmindedly across the bottom of a form. Almost time to go home. A sigh of relief. Face in hands, you wonder why your life feels like a sentence in prison. You ask yourself why your life feels so empty. You feel the walls of your cubicle, of your life, closing in on you. All you want is freedom, contentment. You just don’t know how to get it.
6:32 PM. On the freeway. Traffic jam. Youngster in a blue corvette cuts you off. Not enough energy to get angry.
7:03 PM. Finally home. Exhausted. You park your car in the garage. In the darkness, your foot hits your old skateboard. Why not, you think. I haven’t ridden this thing in years.
7:10 PM. Skating feels awkward. You find yourself wobbling, but you start to get the hang of it. You venture up your street.
7:13 PM. You find yourself on top of your hill. You face the steep downward slope in front of you, the stream of traffic heading left and right at the intersection at the bottom. Your palms start to sweat. You hadn’t skated for a decade. You don’t know if you should risk it. You consider getting your helmet.
7:14 PM. You close your eyes and kick off. The wind whips at your face. Your heart is pounding. A wheel rattles ominously. You nearly lose your balance. The danger, the risk—it disappears to the very back of your brain. You whoop like a child, unembarrassed. You hadn’t felt this alive in years.
7:15 PM. You’re going faster than ever when it hits you. An idea. You know how to find freedom.
1 year later…
8:21 PM. You and your old band are back together. On stage. Your calloused fingers slide down the neck of your guitar and you sing into the microphone.
8:32 PM. The audience—maybe a dozen people, two of which are your parents—claps. You give your drummer a high five. And you smile.
10:02 PM. In your bed. The thermostat of your new apartment is broken. Wind blows through your cracked windows. You think of skipping breakfast and lunch tomorrow to save money. But you can’t stop smiling. You had found freedom.
Freedom is courage. Freedom is taking the risk to follow your passions. Freedom is accepting the possibility of failure, of pain, of death, even, but doing what you love regardless. Freedom is not taking the safe route, but your route. Freedom isn’t always luxurious, but when you’re free, it doesn’t matter, because there isn’t a single other thing you’d rather be doing.
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<p>Find x</p>
<p>Good idea. After all, I’ve found “a”, I’ve found “n”… …I’ve even found “z”. So why haven’t I found “x”? Why is there a stylistic gap where “x” should be? I tend to be rather eclectic. I like to flip through catalogues to adopt my style, whether or not it is internally uniform. My “t” is very modern- that is, rounded and hurried; the “a” takes on a distinct Renaissance look, and the “m” is rather Gothic. Most guides advise calligraphers to find a specific style and stick to it, but that’s like asking a mother to pick a favorite child. The Carolingian script has the sort of “g” I like, but not the “a”. The Renaissance Cancelleresca corsiva has ridiculously long down strokes that I find appealing, but its wavy letters interfere with legibility. After trying several styles, my conclusion is that I don’t have to choose. Can I discount the austere beauty of classical Trajan serifs? The luxurious splendor of Gothic diamonds? The free-wheeling elegance of Modern flourishes? In my amateurish opinion, every era has something worthwhile to offer.</p>
<p>Whenever one hears “find x”, she automatically thinks back to the good old days in Algebra II when she was given equations like 4.9x2+16x-10=0. The “x” in this particular problem describes the time required for a sky diver to accelerate to some velocity from 16 ms-1 in freefall. Another common interpretation would be as those old pirate movies: “x” marks the spot. Whatever “x” is, the alphabet itself seems to merit special treatment as it can symbolize anything from the grand unified theory of the universe to the crux of human affairs. With this in mind, I will give “x” special treatment. I like serifs, I like pretty flourishes, but I also like ridiculously long down strokes. Above all, I like legibility. Somehow, I’m going to incorporate all of these elements into my new “x”.</p>
<p>Let’s start with the serifs because I can virtually place them anywhere. I’m right-handed, so logically my “future” direction is to the right because I always start writing from the left. Where to place my serifs then? Since I associate serifs with Ancient Rome and the Renaissance, to the left they go. How to make the pretty flourish? I can’t very well put it on the right, because that would represent the future, and I can’t tell how future calligraphers will do things. I’ll simply combine the flourish with the ridiculously long down stroke. I’ll start from the right, reach into the future, make my down stroke into the Renaissance and finally sweep the Paleolithic age, and with my flourish, turn back to the present. I’m very much a time traveler. What the Laws of Physics forbid, I make up for with my imagination. I will visit the t-rex and invent the wheel. I will build the Ara Pacis Augustae and fire the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace. I will race a beam of light to the end of time.</p>
<p>So there. I found “x”.</p>
<p>Attached the image of the x I created.</p>
<p>Accepted, so I guess my essays could be helpful. I’d been holding off on posting, since I didn’t want to give examples of writing that Chicago didn’t necessarily like. </p>
<p>Find x (did EVERYONE do this one?)
Part of me wants to hold up a figurine of Patrick Stewart in a wheelchair. </p>
<pre><code>I’m trying to keep that part of me tightly bound and away from the unsuspecting outside world. I’d say it was working, but she’s suddenly looking very crafty, and I’m suddenly remembering that I always was a bit rubbish at tying knots.
Another figurine, this one of Lucy Lawless in leather armor, has suddenly appeared in my right hand. I don’t recall it being there a second ago. This worries me.
But it also nurtures my steadfast and warrior-like spirit. I am not the Last of the Mohicans, nor the Last Samurai – indeed, I’m a touch too ethnic for either role – but I am the Last Person Awake in the House, trying frantically to get all my thoughts down in print before my deadline passes and all of my work, my long hours of daydreaming, are entirely in vain.
Perhaps that is this elusive “x” I should be so keen on finding – the drive and will to somehow submit this application on time. Seems like a good lead, but there’s something about it that I can’t put my finger on. Something…off.
Moving on.
My God, I think I’ve found the answer! The x-gene! Stan Lee’s timeless and pseudoscientific creation! The mutant that gave figurative birth to the X-Men! To a varying percentage of the ever-changing Avengers roster! To Hugh Jackman donning a muscle shirt and flexing with wild abandon! My nirvana has been reached!
But…wait. I’m merely a lowly high school senior, who will soon be a lowly freshman, who will one day be a lowly college graduate with a very likely liberal arts degree. I shudder at the idea of microscopes. Petri dishes give me the willies. Punnett squares – oh, don’t talk to me about Punnett squares! How can I possibly determine the existence and identity of a possibly fictional genome? (Though one always does hope for a sudden development in the nonexistence of superpowers. I for one have had my own particular power set mapped out for years. Autonomous flight, here I theoretically come.) Perhaps my answer lies elsewhere. Perhaps I should take an unprecedentedly smart move and play to my relative strengths. Perhaps this conundrum is English based. Perhaps I should excitedly exude exuberance regarding the excellent existence of my extremely exciting life experiences. Maybe I should examine the exact source of my anxiety that this essay is a terrible anticlimax. Perhaps I should relax. I’m not sure I can continue this line of thought without my head exploding.
In that case, perhaps X marks the spot. The spot of greatest importance in my mind as of this writing – the spot where I can settle down, expand, let my mind wander through the endless aisles of academia like an exceptionally nerdy kid in a candy shop, wherein every sweet is flavored with inquiry. Perhaps X is not a physical location, not a college or any other sort of institution, but a figurative one. Perhaps X is where one situates themselves mentally – between half-full and half-empty, black and white, Faulkner and Hemingway. X is a state of equilibrium, in which all halves are identical and equal. A mind modeling itself after X could be turned about, flipped around and utterly discombobulated, and still look around and realize that it has retained its same form and structure. X is stability, steadfastness, and utter peace with one’s surroundings. I’ve not yet found my X, but perhaps in the next four years, I shall.
Of course, I’m more a proponent of the X = 42 plan. Really, all self-help jargon aside, how else does one find the meaning of the universe?
</code></pre>
<p>Also including my “Why Chicago” essay, because upon rereading it, I really do wonder what the admissions reader made of it…</p>
<p>The University of Chicago is not special. It’s not its professors. It’s not how much money it has in its tastefully-built alumni coffers. It’s not the cars its students drive and subsequently can’t find spaces for. It’s not the contents of its Scav Hunt. It’s not its freaking classes. It’s the all-singing, all-dancing trash of the world. </p>
<pre><code>Though I sincerely hope that it is the flexible humor and pop culture acumen of its admissions officers. You, dear reader, are most assuredly a beautiful and unique snowflake.
All bloody-knuckled machismo aside, the University of Chicago’s first essay question surprised me. It was surprisingly, well, generic. A cookie-cutter answer that custom writes after sneaking a look at the institution’s website and proffered programs. Don’t tell, but I may have written one or two of my own. Shhh.
But the thought of applying this tactic to this school stopped me cold. So here I go, ignoring all the pseudo-helpful advice of admissions message boards and writing something theoretical, vague and most importantly, truthful. With anecdotes.
When I was nine years old, I wanted to be Nancy Drew. I invented a secret code, I tapped on paneled walls. When I was thirteen, I moved on to more adult fare, and decided I wanted to be a lawyer (though a doctor was perfectly acceptable second choice) and moonlight writing bestselling novels. I had a fifteen-year plan for each of my possible life choices, and probably an ulcer or two on layaway. At fourteen, I read Langston Hughes and Emily Dickinson and decided to become a poet extraordinaire. I wrote three notebooks full of amazing works. They were, in a word, horrendous.
</code></pre>
<p>I am sixteen, and I want to attend college and find what I love to do, what this cooped-up intellectual passion inside will latch on to and savor for the rest of my life. I’ve heard the University of Chicago welcomes students like me – undecided, and passionate about their indecision. “Heard,” of course, because no matter how many times one peruses glossy brochures with starry eyes, true knowledge of the truth can only be found through actual experience. </p>
<pre><code>I am sixteen, and I want to learn. I would love for the University of Chicago to help me learn how.
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<p>SO MANY TYPOS.</p>