My world, logistically speaking, cannot be pinpointed: I have lived in three states in America and attended six different schools from elementary school through high school. These were such radically different places for a growing, angst-ridden, perplexed, and lost kid, and I felt as though I had been put in a centrifuge, only to be expelled into a new place but never knowing where or at what time. The constant change in location - and therefore in schools, friends, and...

Whether this is considered a quality or a talent depends on whom you ask, but I believe that my adoration for words - and by consequence, what I do with them - is one of the most special aspects about me. Simply put, language excites me. Novels, short stories, poems, literary analysis papers, a chemistry laboratory report, a newspaper column, biographies, diaries, love letters; whatever the medium, I have dabbled in it, and I have expanded my mind because of...

The only school I interviewed with was Stanford University, and though I thought the interview went swimmingly, I was ultimately rejected. We spoke about knitting, being barefoot, human sacrificial...

One of the best ways to get work done is have someone else do it for you. The post-graduate center coordinator at my high school was incredibly...

The first teacher who wrote my recommendation letter was my freshman year biology teacher and eighth grade science teacher who I first met when I moved to the new town. Though I hadn't been in her class for three years, we were close, and she had seen a huge transition in me that...

In college, I am still working as both a lifeguard and a member of the design department for The Daily Californian newspaper. I...

I could talk forever about how much I love the town and culture of Berkeley. It is famous for its weirdness and now I understand why – the streets are always filled with people with vibrant personalities, everyone you talk to has an...