| By Princesanegrita (Princesanegrita) on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 06:04 pm: Edit |
Would you all mind just reviewing my essays quickly and maybe giving me some suggestions for essay 3..not like u would want to help me...but I'm really stumped
.All my life, I've been preparing to be a nun.
My divine calling always came in the middle of the night from my mother. It wasn't accompanied by a loud, intimidating voice from the heavens but by whispered curses of "no water" or "no heat" and the sound of scurrying feet against dry wooden floors. These short phrases crystallized a decision that I might have been able to make otherwise. As I packed hurriedly, my heart longed to keep only the things that I felt could not be replaced, but in the end, even that list was too long. Like an awakened nun, I parted and broke ties with my material belongings and prepared for a period of simplicity, squeezing my life into a bag that could be easily carried on my back. So without having ever set foot inside the hushed halls of a convent, I can still appreciate the concept of austerity. The thought of living without extravagance does not trouble me, and having gotten by with only the bare necessities of life, I can also recognize the temporal nature of objects. Periods of homelessness and frequent changes in housing forced me to seek stability and solace in any form I could. This search propelled me into my writing with such a ferocity that it soon became my life support. Each time I packed a bag, my journal lay flat on the bottom of the bag, the first thing remembered and the only thing I could depend upon as a constant.
I have come to believe that each person I meet has a chance for immortality. Each young person I see has a chance to be young forever. Time has the ability to corrode and erode our imaginations, our bodies and our emotions. But writing is the antioxidant that allows me to create a future with a better understanding of the past. The memories I write exude the distorted view of a person with only one perspective. Perhaps too biased, too subjective to be a history, it is a collection that forms a book that bears witness to my life. Here biology, philosophy and history rest together coherently and cohesively. These places have the awesome power to outlive the one in whose memory they rest.
The attachment that I now have to material possessions is not attributable to what they are, but to what they represent. For this reason, I would make the same decision Iwas forced to make some years ago. Given the opportunity, I could easily spend a year listening to the sounds that only can be heard in silence and living a life of simplicity. A year spent documenting, relishing, and loving between the leaves of my journal would be priceless.
1. I used to hide my mother's ceramic creations, unless she asked about them. None of them are particularly ugly, but the negative feelings and memories they evoked could often be overwhelming. Under the bed, inside my closet—there no one could see them or ask about them, who made them, or what they represented.
From the time I was eleven years old, my mother has been hospitalized at least half a dozen times. Grief over the loss of approximately 75% of her usable eyesight (due to an accident) has been the trigger for her extreme manic depressive mood swings. During the night she would call an ambulance for herself and tiptoe out with no sirens or warning. Every time she would come home from the hospital, she would bring with her a bag full of arts and crafts and hand them to me with a sort of nervous smile. I would always examine each piece carefully before finally smiling and thanking her. Then I would run up to my room and leave the figures on my desk until I felt she had been fooled into thinking I loved them before finally stashing them in a box or a bag. Honestly, I was ashamed of how vulnerable my mother's illness made me and devastated at how it affected our relationship and our ability to communicate. No matter how pleasing to the eye her artwork was, it always picked at scabs and scars that I fought hard to forget.
My mother, in spite of many attempts at treatment, still becomes sick about once a year and still returns with more crafts and ornaments. For years, either immaturity or extreme sensitivity has blocked me from taking more than a superficial glance at these objects, thus I gained only a meager understanding of the thoughts and emotions that lay beneath my mother's own trials. Instead of accepting some of the uncomfortable aspects of my mother's life, I too often chose to sweep them out of my sight and pretend they didn't exist. My mother's ceramic creations in many ways were a reflection of my own life and mirror both the joy and pain of my childhood. By offering the pieces to me, she, more than anyone has helped me remember the fragility of life and hidden beauty in adversity. While at times my mother's behavior is a source of frustration for me, I have slowly excavated my mother's creations because I long to know more.
3. What should I write?
4. They're science's hardcore rebels. They refuse to follow the conventions of normalcy, and they stubbornly stay in places they're not wanted. They have a most infamous reputation among scientists, and nearly everyone describes them as tough and relentless. After years of working with cancer cells, I respect them.
The treatment/research nature of the Roswell Park Institute provides constant reminders of my ultimate goal as a researcher: the acquisition of knowledge for both the prevention of and the cure for the disease. But after caretaking for these cells, I have acquired an appreciation for their non-conformist attitude. Normal pathway models and paradigms don't apply, and one finding often leads to a thousand new questions.
Part of the motivation for beginning my research has been the alarming increase in the incidence of breast cancer among American women. Hoping to pursue a career in medicine, I have also sought in my research a better understanding of the molecular aspects of the body. The widespread and diverse nature of cancer makes it both a global concern in and of itself and an indirect window into many other branches of medicine relating to other types of diseases. This added dimension of diversity gives cancer cells the advantage in resisting most attempts to control or destroy them. The challenge of working with such an unpredictable bunch excites me and makes my laboratory work something more than just staring peering through microscopes at petri dishes. The world has come to know cancer as almost an immortal enemy. If we are ever to truly defeat cancer in all its forms, I'm sure we'll have to include some ingenious tactics. In that respect, I think we can learn something from these elusive little foes.
| By Ajhayes (Ajhayes) on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 06:16 pm: Edit |
Wasn't this due already?
| By Voigtrob (Voigtrob) on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 06:51 pm: Edit |
Indeed, post office closes at 5:00, usually. Fed Ex as far as I know in my area is open until 7:45, probably later in some areas but probably earlier in others. Generally, 3 = commonapp personal statement. Or something like that. Anyways, Princesanegrita, send it nowwwww if you haven't already.
| By Voigtrob (Voigtrob) on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 06:51 pm: Edit |
Indeed, post office closes at 5:00, usually. Fed Ex as far as I know in my area is open until 7:45, probably later in some areas but probably earlier in others. Generally, 3 = commonapp personal statement. Or something like that. Anyways, Princesanegrita, send it nowwwww if you haven't already.
| By Foreignboy (Foreignboy) on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 07:28 pm: Edit |
FedEx here is open 24 hours.
Do you think they'll really throw your app. in the bin of you send it one day late? Of course I wouldn't want to be the one to find out.
| By Warriorlax22 (Warriorlax22) on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 09:11 pm: Edit |
i'm sending it one day late. my freakin' post office was closed. lazy.... so i'm sending them in tomorrow.
| By Offbeat_Ophelia (Offbeat_Ophelia) on Thursday, January 08, 2004 - 12:10 pm: Edit |
i don't really understand what you're trying to say with these. they don't really make sense.
| By Princesanegrita (Princesanegrita) on Thursday, January 08, 2004 - 10:06 pm: Edit |
Oh Ophelia..its ok..thanks for responding..I gave it a shot. TY for your concern tho.
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