As the credits fade out, I sit, finishing up the last braid of my hair, or waiting for my horrible excuse for polished nails to dry up. I immediately pull up my iMDb and scroll through the trivia and goofs. Whether I have just finished Battle Royale or my third viewing of The Pianist, I still manage to take something new away...
I fell in love on Valentine’s Day. I was seventeen years old, a junior, and had never experienced anything like it before.It’s not what you think, though. It wasn’t one of the cliché, fleeting romances based on the overwhelming number of Hershey’s Kisses, the fluffy pink teddy bears, and the catchy slogans of Hallmark cards that generally accompany the holiday. None of these things caught my attention that day...
“‘My lord, I’ll tell you: that self bill is urg’d/ Which in th’ eleventh year of the last king’s reign…’ Do I honestly need to read this and finish math before tomorrow? Whatever. I mean this is school. I’m here to learn. Maybe Henry V has something to teach me…”This train of thought took numerous forms in my mind during my 11th grade winter, because I felt confused as to why I even bothered with high school and the work that came with it...
“Liquid-asset poor” households have been failed continuously by the American economy, the government, and the fantasized “America Dream.” This reminds me of numerous poor households in third world countries in which live families who have been failed by their own governments and economies. I believe the best way to attempt to equalize the playing field is to put economy stabilization in the hands of the women in these American households...
My first experience in a swimming pool ended in a fiasco involving myself and the lifeguard who saved me from drowning. I was a short, chubby six-year-old in five foot deep water, and I had underestimated the skill it took to even stay afloat. Several emotions arise when I recall this mini-crisis...
I don my offong iwud--a lacy, vibrant scarf that wraps around my head. Mommy yells at the top of her lungs, “Sine offong! Ini ekem edidaka!” I feign annoyance when she commands me to put on my itchy Nigerian clothing; inside, my stomach is churning because I feel that I do not do my garb justice An inner war rages concerning what to wear, but in the end, I choose the pink outfit. Instead slipping it over my shoulders, stares of admiration slip from my eyes and I fall into a daydream of how this outfits transforms me...
I am spending my summer in Boston as a Medicaid intern for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This opportunity to work in the public health sector during a time of change in the health care system has taught me about the inner workings of the services provided to those who cannot afford health care...
When asked about my experience with the infamous eleventh grade year at Phillips Academy, I often begin by noting that I can never understand how students survive the year without prefecting in a freshman dorm. I say that the year was transformative because I experienced it through the eyes of my freshmen as well as my own. I lived with thirty-seven ninth grade girls and four other eleventh graders in a dorm called Nathan Hale...
When considering Ben Franklin’s classes for mankind, I immediately thought about how open the descriptions are in terms of accurately characterizing any human being. In characterizing myself, I like to think about the description in terms of an idea I call “mental mobility,” or a description of how different minds react to alien beliefs and opinions. People who are mentally immovable may or may not listen to other people's opinions during a conversation, but if the ideas do not line up with their own, those people will not consider them for more than the length of the discussion...
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