| I was asked to bump this back up. When my friend asked me to write a college admission essay, I generously accepted the daunting task of writing a thought-provoking and rich essay which would get her into any school that she attended. I believe I accomplished my goals and she is now heading to Stanford University on a full scholarship... she actually sent in this essay people, take note. Although she did change the names so it wasn't to FSU but rather SU...she's a trooper.
Strumming on My Old Banjo
By: Laura LionKing (editors note: real name... almost)
Hey guys, whats going on. My name is Laura, Laura LionKing. That's right, I even own a pet lion I named Simba because thats how awesome I am. But don't let that fool you, I'm a Seminole through-and-through. If you want me to kill the lion the way the Seminoles of the plain states did back around 1760, I'll do it, but it will cost you. How much you might ask? A six thousand dollar scholarship of course. But this is a small price to pay for a documentary of me taking it to a lion cub. However, I digress. The purpose of this paper is to intrigue you, the reader with myself, the student (Laura LionKing). This is no easy task, as I am sure you have been reading thousands of these essays and I must think of a way that you will remember my essay so that you choose me for you're prestigious institution. And I believe I can do that.
As to show you why I am a good fit for your prestigious institution I have decided that I should first tell you a little bit about myself and my prior leadership abilities. I was born in the small Swahili nation in 1986. I still remember the first noise I heard as I left my mother's body - "HOLY CHRIST THAT IS A UGLY BABY!". And of course, it is true, I had one eye located right at the bottom of my lower lip, but the other eye was located in the right spot, just on the wrong side. The tear gland that usually favors being located near the bridge of the nose decided that it did not like the nasal portion of my face one bit and decided to migrate to the other side of my eyeball. To some people this may seem strange and outlandish. But to the Swahili nation, my optical orbs set up in this way made them believe that I was the chosen one to lead the Swahili people to victory over the Germans. Soon, the religious procession began as they marched my glorious visage around the streets of the starving city. On every street corner they shouted "Laura! Laura!", which in Swahili means "Victory over the Germans!".
At the age of five I made my first militaristic advance into normandy through "Causeway 2", which is the same road the 101st Airborne Division used to invade Normandy during World War II. I figured that the sight of a tribe of Swahili men in loincloths, carrying spears would scare the Germans wild as they would lay down their guns and retreat into the Bearing Straight were they would drown. However, this theory was wrong as my company was soon completely defeated in the battle known as "De Laura Es Bambina" which, in a weird sort of Swahili/Spanish mixed language means "Little Black Beans are Marching to Defeat the Germans!". We thought of the name of the battle before we actually fought it, as we later renamed the battle "Muy Cocho Fabioso Fuego", which in the same Swahili/Spanish dialect means "German Massacre of Brave Swahili Warriors". On the way home on our Long Boat, the ghost of Hitler made a surprise visit to our craft. However, after looking at my horrid face left with a contemptious chortle. The men asked me many times on the way back why Hitler had shown up. In response to this question I stood up and did an interpretive dance known to us Swahilis as "La Roja De Piquena Rug". It was a great success and soon forgot all about the eiry visit from Hitler. If I would have told them the truth, I am not sure they could have handled it. What he really told me was that I was to go to FSU and play on their volleyball team, where I would be the best setter of all time.
Soon after we arrived, the elders remarked that I must not be the chosen warrior princess becauase of my great loss at the battle of Muy Cocho Fabioso Fuego, and banished me from all of Afrika. So, my family and I took off to the mother land. We took a chartered jet to the Dulles Airport in downtown Washington D.C. From there, we had a two year lay over period as we waited in the terminal, growing older and learning to cultivate crops in terminal B. As I grew to the ripe age of 9 it was finally time to get onto flight 760 to Jacksonville, Florida. I was so excited to reach the motherland after two years of eating "Terminal Berries" and feasting off the blood of lost travelers that I got hypothermia and was rushed to the paramedics at Mercy Hospital. From there, the doctors refused to work on me if I opened my "lower eye". So, I was forced to "wink" the entire procedure as they realized I had "Beagle Syndrome". "Beagle Syndrome" basically meant that my trachea had collapsed. It is a normal problem in most species of Beagles, having mistaken me for a Beagle they sent me home with the a-okay. Shockingly enough, my trachea never again collapsed to the best of my knowledge, although I do take a inhaler to stop it from happening. So, after the ordeal we made it onto our flight and arrived in beatiful Jacksonville, Florida with nothing but good intentions and a llama which we found in the over-head storage bin.
With our limited supplies we were forced to sell the llama at a pawn shop for six dollars and a bag of tokens to a local Chuck-E-Cheese's establishment. My father got a job as the giant rodent at the Chuck-E-Cheese's resturaunt and we soon found ourself in a hovel outside "Little Swahili" in downtown Jacksonville. It felt just like home, except with less elephants and tribal music, and more drive-by's and pounding rap music. Soon I was sent to school where I would often get weird looks and children asking me weird questions like "why do you have an eyeball on your chin?" and "you are the ugliest kid I've ever met." The latter wasn't really a question, more of a statement. So, after a few days of these terrible remarks about my facial deformaty my parents contacted the principle of the school. After the meeting about my "special" eyes, my parents said they had decided on a solution. Because they did not have enough money to get my eyes fixed, they had instead ordered a "face wig". This was like a normal wig, except you tied it around your face, it looked surprisingly real, and now that I look back on it, looked increadibly masculine. I am proud to say I was the first member of my fourth grade class to have a beard. However, a boy named Torque came in a close second. He was in fifth grade when I was in fourth, however, just anyone in elementary school having a beard we felt was very cool. So soon my luck changed as I became a "popular" girl with my very pretty beard and misplaced tear gland. I would often joke about it when someone asked about the eye, I would just say "I have a tear gland, you just have a tear BLAND!" and everyone would find it slightley amusing.
After this, my life became as any other normal person's life growing up in the motherland. I made friends, I lost friends, I showed people what was under my face wig and they would never talk to me again, it was a pretty normal childhood. That is, until I met the man of my dreams during summer break between my freshman and sophmore year. His name was Kenny "Merlyn's Beard" Hannahs. He was probably the most handsome man I have ever met. He wore a face wig too, but his eye was located right at the base of his neck and mandible, which he said made chewing very hard. His nick-name was Merlyn's Beard because of his white beard that shined like a newly-waxed bowling ball. Merlyn's Beard and I soon became best of friends we would do everything together, going tobagganing down the sand-dunes, catching crabs with our face wigs as a snare, playing "capture the hippo without being force-fed to a kitten", and building fires out of potatoe chips and saurkraut. One day, while we were braiding our face wigs together we got too close and as our noses touched together, I saw his handsome eye staring back at my eye. I had my doubts before, but it was at this moment I knew it was true love. However, we knew it was forbidden love, he was a Montegue and I was a Capulet, I knew it could never be, but I knew we had to try. We continued to write to eachother, sending little strands of our face wigs to eachother in silent recognition of one another. As I continued through high school I always kept a little strand of his face wig taped to the back of my binder, I think it brings me good luck.
As I look back onto my time on Earth I remember all of the fun times, all of the sad times, and all of the trivial and argumentabley meaningless moments of my life. I believe that actions always speak louder than words, so I encourage you to see my writing as one action that has brought me to this point and you see that my life is not best described in words, but through actions. |
