We always ran together because the coach assigned partners based on individual times. We were friendly but not friends; I don’t think I had ever really had a conversation with her. After practice one day, I expressed my hesitation about running the 1600 at our next meet—I had never raced more than 400 meters, and I worried that I would come in last. She made some statement about how I shouldn’t worry, because things would happen as they were meant to. I ignored her comment; I had always been irritated by allusions to fate, karma, and superstition...
I was driving my friend Kayla on a rainy day last week. She plugged my phone in to the USB cord, double clicked the home button, and pushed play. “There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life,” Sir Lawrence Olivier whispered. Kayla rolled her eyes at me and plugged her own phone in, replacing those exquisite lines from Hamlet with Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” (I grudgingly began to sing along with her)...
“Does that mean I failed?” I inquired.I’m sure I wasn’t the first or the last to ask this question. In fact, the man sitting in the passenger seat had probably heard it many times that day alone. He looked over and nodded indifferently. He had known me for a total of six minutes, if that, and yet here he was, shattering my dreams—again...
IT TAKES ALL KINDS (TRAIL MIX)Heading back from the deep of the Maine wilderness, I sat quietly awaiting our arrival. As I gazed out the window at the beautiful woods I noticed the first sign of civilization I had seen in a while. Something stood out to me; from a distance I could make out two seemingly homeless men unpacking their bags at a gas station...
To me, diversity isn’t about what is on the outside, but what people don’t see, your thoughts, opinions, hopes and dreams that make you different. These last four years I have been a part of Iona Prep’s Forensics Speech and Debate team, an experience that has had the greatest impact on me thus far. It has forced me to read, write, speak, and most importantly think, with a plethora of views. This is where my diversity comes from, enough diversity to provide a million different answers to the question “what should be done about the Euro zone?”..
In combining my love for foreign diplomacy and environmental science, I want to major in International Relations while pursuing a minor in Sustainability and Environmental Management at the College of Arts and Sciences. The practical, flexible academic programs at the University of Pennsylvania will prepare me to serve the United States abroad as a foreign diplomat economic officer, specializing in environmental issues.While living in Finland this summer as a youth ambassador, I found representing the United States thrilling. Explaining America’s positions on different policies was exciting, and I felt like I was making a positive diplomatic impact...
I have days when I’ll spend hours at a time learning about a random topic – reading articles on the history of Cyprus, for example, or listening to an online lecture on causal reasoning. It’s as though Csikszentmihalyi's concept of “flow” (which I’ve also researched) will take over and I become fully immersed in learning...
I often am greeted with surprised faces when I say that my favorite subject is math. To my friends, I am known as “band geek extraordinaire” and to most adults I am known simply as “the arm-waver at football halftime shows”. It makes sense that they would be confused. Music is beautifully expressive and free flowing, while math is distinctly concrete and always has one right answer. However, if you look below the surface math and music are closely interrelated...
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