College Essay
White. Female. What year will you graduate? In an attempt to get to know you, the college applications inquire, please place one word and a number to differentiate you from all of the other one worded numbers and single digited words. In an attempt to be fair, and in the interest of research - you wouldn’t want to squash that, now would you? - please tell us your race, your religion, your mother’s maiden name, and your favorite type of jam. We want diversity, you see, if you are not diverse enough, you see, you can’t come, you see, for if the percentages don’t work out, you see, we are accused of racism and separatism and accountabilityism, and we wouldn’t want that. So tell us, in 500 words or less, one word is best, if you are part of a unique culture; that way we can add you to our statistics, and you can become a face in a crowd.
Meditations
I am trying to find enlightenment in the written word. Plumbing the depths of human nature, I’m searching literature for some crystal of truth around which to grow an identity. I find many things on the smooth white pages between the crooked lines: humor and sorrow, birth and death, a million experiences beyond my ken. But what I search for is noticeably lacking: answers, truth, fulfillment, maybe even love. Because, of course, I’ve read about love and it’s all consuming nature, but reading is never the same and I want to grab reality and hold on until some little piece rubs off. But it is the tragedies that hide what I seek. In the gaps between Oedipus Rex and Macbeth there lies undiscovered truth; I know this because I read it somewhere. And I shall have to search until I find it; analyzing metaphors and subtexts until literature and human nature line up as an equation and then all I have to do is solve for X and I will have the question. For I already know the answer; it is 42.
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