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Well, at least for me... Please you guys check out my 600 word essay for UC and critique it as best u can... thanks u guys i appreciate it.
Open ended question

No, there really aren’t shootings outside all day. While there are many false perceptions of life in the “ghetto”, there are also sad realities that I think are even more dangerous than any drive-by. These include living in homes where the parents’ priority is not educating their children as much as it is having enough money to feed them. Coming from a financially lacking grade school in South Central, I experienced first-hand the deprivation of such things as new math books, spacious classrooms and sturdy desks. I now realize how behind we were compared to most schools of middle class communities. Nevertheless, I am supremely proud of the accomplishments my class and I were able to achieve together, despite all.
I can clearly remember one day when my eighth grade teacher, Mr. Chappelle, stormed into our classroom and banged his fist on his desk. He had had an argument with the principle about purchasing new math books to replace our 12-year-old ones. The principle had told him the school budget could not afford them at the time. Well, Mr. Chappelle decided to take matters into his own hands.
Mr. Chappelle was determined to make Math our class’ strong point because sadly most minority students in South Central continually proved to be behind in this subject. He assigned us four hours of Math homework nightly, something we all deeply dreaded. Our class was very active in participating in academic competitions such as the Bosco Tech Math Competition, the Academic Decathlon, and various others. It was at such events that we shined above all other schools, taking first places and sweeping the competition.
After myriad hours of math homework and practice, our class developed a unique ability to make doing long mental math problems seem as easy as eating cake. “Take the number three. Cube it. Add 11. Multiply it by four. Find 25 percent of that. Square it.” Such were mental math problems that Mr. Chappelle would ask us while we stood up against the chalkboard. Little did we know, this particular ability would be our ticket to free math books.
A math book publishing company had heard about our mental math skills and was so interested that they invited ten of us to go to their office and show them what a group of minority South Central students could do. So one Saturday afternoon, we drove out to Temecula in hopes that something good could come out of it. After introducing ourselves to the company representatives, we proceeded to work our magic. Nervous though we were, our brains felt supercharged and we left the representatives in utter aw after showing them how we could zoom through those mental math problems. The best part came next. After our presentation, the representatives stood up and applauded us and announced that as a gift for such talent, they would donate our entire class new math books.
Our class may have been deprived in many aspects; still we worked to achieve what any other student could, with or without new math books. I learned that if I wanted to succeed in life, I could do it no matter what the circumstances. Sure we did not have the most up-to-date math books around, and sure we did not have the financial support many other schools did. Still, our dedication to succeed served as our wings. The math books we earned as a result of our hard work were more than just a donation; they served as a boost in our confidence and faith in ourselves, something I now carry with me for the rest of my life.

By Bmckn (Bmckn) on Wednesday, December 03, 2003 - 12:40 am: Edit

Did this really happen? If so, bravo.

By Nokio869 (Nokio869) on Wednesday, December 03, 2003 - 12:43 am: Edit

yeah.. it really happpened...

By Amnestykid (Amnestykid) on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 08:52 am: Edit

very interesting essay.

By Amnestykid (Amnestykid) on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 08:53 am: Edit

brilliant essay, the choice of content is great, and the ending is well suited!

good luck and happy holidays,
AK.