Here I see two different worlds. One, the rural, the traditional, hearkens back to my ancestors who settled on a farm in the Ozark Mountains almost two centuries ago. The other, the urban, the modern, beckons me to the fast-paced world of money, of glamor, of big buildings and bright lights. I am content here because I don’t have to choose here...
In my family, I have one uncle who is a gun-owning Southern Baptist preacher and another who is a pacifist living with his family in a Catholic Worker community. My circle of friends includes several who are strongly Christian and several who are strongly atheist. At church, there is a constant struggle between my progressive pastor and a somewhat more traditional congregation. Even two of my favorite teachers have ideologies directly opposing each other, one a staunch Tea Party conservative and the other a bleeding heart liberal. Slogging through these contradicting opinions being thrown at me, I was never entirely sure where I myself fit in...
Before I made a decision to major in political economy, Georgetown only crossed my mind as the basketball team I occasionally pulled for during March Madness. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for in a school; I only knew that I wanted to study policy and the economy, and particularly the degree to which they are intertwined. I believe it is impossible to understand political issues without understanding the economic factors that have shaped them, and likewise impossible to understand the economy without understanding the politics and policy contributing to its fluctuations...
The garish yellow spines of several “Nancy Drew” mysteries are just visible, reclining at a slight angle behind a stack of books that includes “America’s Interest in World Peace” by Irving Fisher and Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King.” On the shelf above resides my collection of Brian Jacques’ “Redwall” series, about twenty in all, books that I devoured throughout elementary and middle school, now collecting dust behind “The Closing of the American Mind” and “The Pickwick Papers.” Represented on my bookcase are seventeen years of passions...
As a general rule, never ask high-schoolers about their middle school days. Their initial reactions of shock,embarrassment, and then regret are usually enough to stop the pleasant flow of conversation altogether.Unless you’re particularly callous, you should also just completely avoid the topics of old yearbook photosand ID cards.
For me, it isn’t that I had an extremely weird sense of style or that I still hadn’t gotten my braces yet – no, I’mmore mortified at what kind of person I used to be...
While most of my friends went on vacations or picked up research internships at local universities, I spent my last two summerssurrounded by pool water. This wasn’t particularly new: I’ve been a competitive swimmer since the age of five, but what really mademy perfume of chlorine worth it was when I finally got a real job...
I don't think people figure out what they really want to do with their lives for a long time; I've met some middle-aged men still trying out new things in search of an ultimate life goal. So at the ripe age of 17, I don't quite know what my grand goals for life are going to be. What I do know is that right now I aim to make myself into the best version of me that I possibly can. In choosing my various academic and extracurricular activities, I strive to make each and every thing I do beneficial in honing a useful life skill or simply improving me as a human being...
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