Click clack. Click clack. Click clack. The train bumped its way across the tracks stretching off into the horizon and out of sight across the huge open field. Far in the distance, there were the sharp, unforgiving silhouettes of the mountains, but the closer landscape was flat and smooth; it was lonely, but friendly and […]
Dear Mr. Obama, Mr. Obama, my name is Scott L. There are a number of reasons why I am the best candidate for your internship this summer. I know I can work for anyone. I started my own business at the age of 8. I think I can handle being a “go-fer” for awhile. I […]
She smiles down at me, living in the full pleasure of being alive. I don’t yet understand her importance or her influence, but I love her just the same. I take her hand, and we dance across the beach, happily following the shoreline, our windbreakers fluttering against our arms. We laugh, looking for sand dollars, […]
Earlier than Paula sat down behind me, everybody was shifting uncomfortably of their seats in a futile try and keep away from sweating of their florid formalwear. Paula was a vibrant mom who was quickly in a position to change the environment of your entire commencement. Paula’s father, who should have been near ninety years […]
I used to think that I was one of the rarest people on the earth because I had been to see the ocean. And not just that, I had swam in the ocean. As I grew older I realized that it was not so uncommon, so I stashed the memory to the back of my […]
Pain, constant ringing, and mood swings. I had been transported to a foreign world. Failing tests, lacking short-term memory, and nagging fatigue. I lived in a world of insanity for a month. During my freshman year of high school, I got a concussion. Since I was in the midst of the year and club volleyball […]
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you. My mother—a single parent—works as a civil servant of Bhutan: due to her occupational hazards, I was entitled to attend boarding school and travel alone at a young age. Ever since I started to attend […]
My year’s most exciting moments arrive in the mailbox with Girl’s Life magazine, embellished with a fresh “Dear Carol” column. Carol Weston, a Yale graduate, teens’ author, and family friend, has had an immeasurable influence on me. My parents and I have spent hours around the kitchen table deliberating over the questions agonizing “Boy Problems,” […]
Over 50 miles from the nearest gas station and a five-day paddle from any sort of infrastructure, I stepped out of the canoe, waved good-bye to my fellow “leaders in training” and entered the unknown. Armed with my pocket knife, a tarp, 20 feet of rope, a fishing rod, a Bible, a journal, my sleeping […]
“For it is in giving that we receive.”-St. Francis of Assisi The overwhelming feeling of God’s presence is not something that is simple to write about. It is a feeling that you must experience in your own time. It is an emotion that is so hard to describe that words seem trivial. I will try […]