Trusted College Admission Counseling

Trusted College Admission Counseling By the time high school rolled around, that girl was nowhere to be found. After years and years of being told what to think and the “right” questions to ask, I had retreated into intellectual paralysis. I would uncomprehendingly coast through my classes, molding my knowledge to fit the next quiz and promptly forgetting it afterwards. School didn’t require, and at times, actively discouraged my insatiable desire to figure out the puzzles of the world, so I shoved that side of myself away and forgot that it even existed. This epic is not only a great bookâ€"it is the great book of Poland, as important and symbolic as the Vistula River that flows from the Polish mountains to the Baltic sea. Colonel Cathcart is a leader that cares more about his reputation for leading “the toughest” than he does about the well-being of his people. Stories of centuries ago would flit around us as her voice gave life to Orpheus, the musician, Prometheus, the maker of man, and Pan, the god of nature. In times of strife, I would often revisit these myths, using them to process and understand the stress of my young life. To clarify, my response was not a result of any past trauma. My visceral reaction to Lolita remains a mystery to me. The words manifested in my body, and remain there today. I used to worry that I would stand outâ€"especially in school. The views of my society are rather one dimensional towards being different. When reflecting that becoming part of this society would lead me to self-hatred, I have come to see Master as an example. The hardship he undergoes and the courage he portrays afterwards have inspired me to embrace who I am. This sense of clarity I received, was due in part to Pride and Prejudice because even though it did not provide me with the answers to my questions, it had given me a sense of self awareness. The notion that prejudice clouds perception was a truth that I don’t imagine I’d have come to as early without the help of Austen and it made me wonder how much more I could learn from reading. After that I became obsessed with reading, falling into my old habits of staying up late to read the last chapter, staying in to read at lunch, and going to the library every weekend. I am forever grateful to Pride and Prejudice for reigniting the passion for reading I had lost in middle school. The move to Texas was one of the hardest transitions in my life as I was greeted with a culture shock and had to reinvent myself. I can’t look at it without a wave of nausea and fascination crashing over me. If you flip through the book now, you can see the pages I gripped so tightly that they tore. After reading Lolita, my brother and I spent the following days dissecting every minute detail, trying to find some kind of understanding of Lolita. The critical viewpoint I have grown into has trained me not to take things for granted and to be inquisitive. So, in a way, The Master and Margarita has helped me to understand my father and appreciate him as an outsider, an individualist. I have also become an individualist who tries to defy the conformism around him. We searched together for insight, sat up late after dinner arguing about whether or not Humbert loved Dolores, and what the final meeting between Humbert and Dolores meant. My experience of Lolita is intrinsically connected to the discussions I had with my brother. Lolita inspired in me a fervent hunger for discussion of truth. Constitution, Poles are required to memorize sections of Pan Tadeusz, especially those which are thought to embody the core of what it means to be Polish. A Pole reciting the opening of Pan Tadeusz is like an American reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Its author, Adam Mickiewicz, is considered something of a literary god, somewhere between Dante and Shakespeare. Self-confidence is something I have struggled very long and hard with. In California my peers and I had shared the same views. We were all so liberal which at the time felt like a blessing, but when I got to Texas it seemed as though everywhere I went my ideas were challenged. He has always encouraged me to have my own personal outlook and opinion. I think he believes that conformity undermines intellectual potentialâ€"an opinion I now strongly agree with. Moreover, he has taught me to stand my ground and be perceptive.