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The following essay is what i am entering into a scholarship about adversity. Please give me some negative and postive feedback.. honestly..

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Laws of Life: Perseverance

“What is your address and phone number?”

There I stood wide-eyed and dazed in front of my new fifth grade teacher. It was mid March in Savannah. The brisk sunny day was still tainted with the parties of Saint Patrick’s Day the weeks before.

“Julia, did you hear me? Where do you live?”

The truth was, I did not know. My mother was a victim of domestic violence. She fled from our home with the clothes on her back and her children-- my sister and me. The morning we left will never escape from my memory. The lasting vision that I have is the sight of my father sleeping, after a long night of “unwinding” from a busy day at work. It would be a year afterwards until I would see my father again.

The events that followed embarked me on a roller coaster of emotions, both high and low. I am convinced that what helped me survive this ordeal was the perseverance I conserved. This attribute allowed me to seek a light at the end of a tunnel that was dark, eerie, and unfamiliar to me. My mother, in an event of pure bravery removed us from the only life we knew, into a life of uncertainties and unknowns. I now found myself in this strange city that made me feel isolated and secluded from everyone.

“Julia! If I have to ask you one more time…Where do you live?”

“I do not know!” I screamed back, in an awful combination of frustration and sheer embarrassment. In reality, I was living in a womens shelter that provided a safe haven for mothers, like mine, that were homeless with children and no other place to go. My mother was introduced to the shelter while on a job interview when she could not fill out the address portion of the application. The old southern Savannah house was at one time the home of a former southern confederate, but now, a safe haven for homeless families. Although the shelter was a blessing to encounter, it had some drawbacks. It was a rule at the shelter that you did not give out personal information pertaining to the shelter. No one was to know about the address, location, or any other contact information to the shelter, including administrators, teachers, friends and even family. I remember talking to my father and having my mother stand apprehensively behind me, monitoring what I said. I could not be too detailed about where I was, what I saw, or whom I have met in Savannah.

My mother was not taking the change well. She would often stay up at night, and pace the floors. Thinking intensively and focused. I always wondered what she was thinking. It was not until years later that I discovered she was contemplating suicide.

This experience living in a controlled environment was a blessing in disguise. The help and warm care shown to me by the volunteers at the shelter allowed me to see the service of volunteering in the eyes of the ones receiving the care.

I vowed to myself to become an advocate to women and children in unsafe conditions. I volunteered at a Legal Aid law office, helping low-income women, similar to my mother, receive legal help in obtaining custody of the children they left behind. I also started and direct a Reader’s Theater for children at our local public library. This service helps children realize the importance of literacy and enjoy the art of drama at the same time. My mom and I are now giving back to the shelter. My mother is now on the Board of Directors for the organization that saved both of our lives.

Life has taught me that anything can happen. Anyone can accept that perseverance is needed to have the courage to modify the situations that can be changed. If my mother and myself did not exhibit perseverance, it’s scary to think of what could have happened.

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 07:00 pm: Edit

You already have a good essay for that (and other) scholarships as well as college admissions. I hope that you will also look for other places to use it.

Clearly, you've not only survived adversity, you've managed to rise above it by reaching back and helping others in positions similar to what you experienced.

What would strengthen your essay would be putting more details about what you're now doing as a volunteer. Paint some pictures of your volunteer work that are as compelling as the picture you described as yourself as a dazed 5th grader who had had to flee her home.

To make space for this, you can reduce the info in the graph that begins, "I don't know." All I think that you really need in that graph is the first sentence as well as info that due to the danger, you could not tell others your address.

Also describe how you started and direct the reading theater, and how that relates to your experience at the shelter.

Good luck to you!

By Mew24680 (Mew24680) on Monday, October 13, 2003 - 09:42 pm: Edit

u people make me go crazy, i cant right anything like this.

By Tybeesierra (Tybeesierra) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 07:48 pm: Edit

"You can't say bump on an message board"..

"bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, b-bu-bu-bump!

By Tybeesierra (Tybeesierra) on Saturday, October 25, 2003 - 03:22 pm: Edit

bump