It's 6:45 a.m. and I'm in the shower. Normally I would wake up earlier to take care of that task, but I didn't need to wake up in the morning. Five days and several drafts after starting my King Lear paper I still couldn't tie the theme of justice to filial ingratitude. Solution: pull an all-nighter. In my characteristic euphemistic manner, I like to refer to the whole fiasco as my way of easing myself into the wonderful world of term papers. By 7:30 I'm in my first-hour class, ironically, but expectedly, bright-eyed, although not as bushy-tailed as normal. After school, I prepare for the rough time I'm about to have juggling all of my extracurriculars. I also realize that I won't be returning home for a prolonged period of time. Boy, do I miss that lunch hour this year. It's really hard to convince myself that taking extra elective classes are worth corporal punishment, but thinking of the supply-demand curves I learned in Economics, all doubt leaves my mind. Nonetheless, I scurry to the Writing Center for my hour of tutoring. After completing my thesis-teaching, participle-undangling duties, I rush off to my National Honor Society Meeting where I preside over the board and arrange plans for this year's Special Olympics. I find both of those activities very rewarding because of the service that accompanies them. Not only do I share my talents and abilities with the less fortunate, but I also learn as much as the people I help because I view my own abilities from a different perspective. I learn to appreciate my talents like that lost lunch hour and learn how to put them to even greater use by sharing them. By 4 p.m., I also appreciate that the Student Advisory Committee meets during school. While that forces me to miss class, in turn giving me even more homework, I would rather not have to rush talking with the principal about matters concerning administrative policy and how it affects students. As far as I'm concerned, if school decisions don't get student input they're meaningless. Nor will I hesitate to put that in writing in the school newspaper. So at four o'clock I head into the computer lab an hour late in order to publish the next issue of the (school newspaper). My staff adviser is somewhat mad at me because of the angered reaction the School Board had toward my biting editorial on administrative waste (true story), so in a somewhat self-confident way I mention that my national award wasn't won by waffling on tough stories. This issue seems to be going well as far as layout, and it looks like I might get to go home as early as eight o'clock. So I thought. In that funny way Fate has of reminding us not to guess the future, the Entertainment Editor mis-sizes an ad, forcing the whole page to have to be redone. Moments like those make me want to quit the paper, but I enjoy the writing and planning of the periodical too much to ever make my threats serious. I also feel it is my duty to inform the school about events that concern students, especially unfair ones, and to state my opinion on such policies. Without that service, many would be in the dark about very important issues. I view that as a tragedy.

I finally leave at 9:30, and return home to eat, study for tomorrow's JETS competition, plan out debate arguments, do homework, and make up for yesterday night's lost sleep-all within a four hour period. So much for finishing that T.S. Eliot anthology I enjoy. It's always difficult to put aside something one likes to do, and I still don't understand how I sacrificed my love for science for other activities. Ever since I perused my first science book in the first grade, I've had a love for the subject which only intensified when I began getting hands-on experience, engineering experience, from projects I copied out of library books. I miss electrolysis, making devices from mousetraps and my first-place science fair project. Studying engineering would allow me to put my interest and abilities in that field to use for others as I enjoy doing with every activity. If only I had a University of Michigan engineering degree to help me design a solution to that problem.

Comments

This essay's strength lies in how detailed and specific the author gets by walking the reader through a day in his life. He writes with a light tone that somewhat helps to modify some of his more boastful claims. He manages to talk about a very wide range of interests by tying it all in to the focus of his schedule for that day. This essay could have been improved, though, by not trying as hard to impress by mentioning King Lear, the National Honors Society, the JETS competition, and his position on the newspaper. When taken all together, this is apt to sound too much like name dropping. He would have done better by leaving some of these out (they are, after all, listed elsewhere in his application) and concentrating on showing more depth in just one or two of the areas. In general, this essay was below average.