Hi I’m a little desperate for feedback! I’m so nervous about my essay not being good enough. Could you read it and tell me what you think? It’s about my bedroom.
With a thrust of my torso, I burst through the stubborn door into my innermost reality. It’s hued with all of the soft creams and pinks of a sunset in the clouds, accented with the lush viridescence of my plants and the walnutty tones of distressed wood. This tidy, 400 square-foot space, its drywall painted the color snowbound and its hardwood stained provincial, is the embodiment of my individuality. But how can a physical space convey the involved mechanisms inside of a young woman’s mind? Every piece, every placement, has a purpose.
It’s smaller than where I made my reality before, half a continent away. I only brought the pieces I spent years searching for, the ones that I loved the most: the blush chaise lounge, the queen bed, the mismatched nightstands, the fiddle leaf fig, the Breath of the Wild guidebook. The two Hatsune Miku figures above the modest wooden desk are among my favorites. Sakura Miku strides forward, the spring wind blowing past her pink twintails, a smile gleaming across her face as she embraces the sakura blossoms. To her right, Magical Mirai 2019 Miku is posed with one of her legs kicked up behind her, gripping her microphone, cheerfully gesturing outwards with a sparkle in her eyes as she performs Suha no Wakusei. My heart swells when I look into either Miku figure’s eyes, losing myself to the admiration I have for the originality of VOCALOID music. Joining them on the shelf is a canvas print of grass Pokémon by one of my favorite online artists, waiting patiently for a new piece of artwork to join it—perhaps, a canvas print of a midnight-lit Tokyo?
Peculiar as they may be, Nintendo games and Japanese vocal synthesizer software charge the electric highways of zeroes and ones that make up my mind. Hatsune Miku inspires my dreams—imagine being on her team of programmers, exploring technology that breaks the boundaries between what’s virtual and real! The organized calculus on my desk and the Java program on my laptop share this resplendent dream. The Pokémon artwork also sparks my imagination—it’s a window to my life online, being the background of the video game blog I author. These objects, eccentric and eye-catching, are of cosmic importance to me. And yet, they are interwoven seamlessly into this sophisticated reality, their colors gracefully complementing those of this space.
Facing the left wall window, the bed is immaculately made. A midcentury-modern build with a creamy fabric headboard, blush pillows of varying textures and a lavender rabbit sit peacefully at its head. The layers of covers that drape the bed go from a cotton-white to a velvety rose. It looks so pristine that you don’t even notice how it’s been crooked since the move, or that the light fabric has a few dark spots.
How could you focus on these underlying imperfections when this exterior is so kind? This space is ethereal. But underneath its dreamlike aesthetic, anxieties slumber. I am the allistic twin, burdened with the responsibilities of patience and understanding. I am the transfer student from Texas to Connecticut, tasked with adapting to a new life, even in chaos. I am a female computer science nerd, a slow cross country runner, a feminist anime fan—in many ways, I’m alone.
I am the change I wish to see in the world, in how we love one another, and how we love ourselves. This room is tranquil, compassionate, dreamlike, confident, honest. This room is a reflection. The bed may be crooked. So every morning, I make it.
To an outsider, this may just be a well-kept bedroom. But within every piece that makes it mine is a whisper of my past and a vision of my future. It’s my reality, and I’m eager to unleash it to the world around me.
I’m applyig to Northeastern ED. I have a 1520 SAT and a 4.2 GPA.