I’ve been trying to write my Personal Statement for graduate school applications, but let’s just say it’s going slowly. I’m easily distracted by such paramount tasks as eating cookies, watching football, and removing the red eye in all of my digital photographs.
Okay, I suck.
During one of my moments of distraction I turned to MomOh for some inspiration via gchat. “You’ve always been a writer,” she said. “It’s kind of like breathing.” Yes. But how do I convey that to the admissions board in 500 words or less without sounding like a self-absorbed ass? MomOh pulled out the folder in which she keeps school projects and other mementos of my precocious childhood and dictated to me some of my earliest “invented spelling” works. This poem, written by Kindergarten JackieOh, was accompanied by a goldfish wearing a bikini top:
Did you ever see
A fish Whairing
A beckene
It even rhymes! Where is that talent now?!
The real gem of the collection was a life timeline that I made in first or second grade. I was going to have my first boyfriend at 14, be in the Olympics 19, and attend law school at 20. I had lofty goals! Alas. But it gets better: At age 30 I’m going to move to Washington, DC, then get busy because at 32 I’m having a baby girl named Nicole. Baby Eric will come along at 35, followed by Katie at age 38. Apparently I’ve been a life-planning control freak my entire life. I also named my grandchildren (Nicole will have a son named Matt and a daughter named Diana) and plan to die at the ripe old age of 98. ("Who plans her death on a timeline?" wondered SisterOh.) It's not a bad life, really, but it didn’t help me write this personal essay of why I want to go to grad school for writing. Now, if I were still on the law school track (and in DadOh’s good graces!) I could use this timeline as evidence that even from a young age I have always wanted to be a lawyer.
I’d just choose not to mention one of the other drawings that MomOh uncovered that read: When I get biger I whant to be a balarena. When I gro up I whant to be a Nars.
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3 comments:
I want to hug you!
Aww I'll take an IOU!
HAHAHAHA....this is the best post I've possibly ever read, and I swear it's not because I'm teaching second grade right now.
But MomOh is right, you are a writer (anyone reading your journal can tell that). So just sit down and freewrite for a bit so that you can start getting out some ideas. Then, later on you can mold it so that you look like the pretentious ass that all grad school admissions officers are looking for.
And if you ever need someone to proofread
------------------->me.
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