重磅！芝加哥大学、佐治亚大学、圣母大学更新2023-2024申请季补充文书

If you asked me what object I’d save in a burning fire, I’d save my notebook. My notebook isn’t just any notebook, it’s bubble gum pink with purple tie dye swirls, and has gold coil binding it together. But more importantly, it’s the key that unlocked my superpower, sending me soaring into the sky, flying high above any problems that could ever catch me. However, my notebook is simply the key. My real power rests in the depths of my mind, in my passion for writing. But to know how my powers came to be (not from a spider or a special rock), I must travel back to the first spark.

Nine years ago, on a cold winter morning, I sat at my tiny wooden desk in Mr. Barton’s famous Writer’s Workshop class. While I have no recollection of what I wrote, I can vividly recall my joy, the speed of my hand guiding the pencil on the paper, and the thrill I had knowing that I was the puppeteer. The story could be completely mine as long as I had my imagination. At this moment, my creative powers sparked like a car engine. This was the first time I truly enjoyed writing.

Four years ago, I wrote my first 6-word memoir in my eighth-grade rhetoric class. Inspired by my father’s recently diagnosed terminal illness, I wrote “Take his words, don’t take him”. It was as if all the energy of my powers surged into six meaningful words meant to honor the man that I would soon lose to a villain known as ALS. This was the first time I felt my writing.

Three years ago, my dad’s disease severely progressed. The ALS seized his ability to speak and locked it in a tower with no key. The only way we could communicate was with an old spiral notebook. Black pen ink filled the pages with his distinctive handwriting I personally liked to call chicken scratch. He was frail, yet full of life, when I walked into his room one day. He motioned for to me to read the notebook, and in his best chicken scratch it read, “I Love You”. Using my best eighth-grade girl penmanship, I wrote back, “I LOVE YOU MORE”. This was the first time I needed my writing.

Two years ago, I found my key. I drove to Target and purchased my bubble gum pink, purple swilled tie dye, and gold coil binding notebook. My powers always dwelled deep inside me, but the instant I opened my notebook, it was as if a bright light illuminated my face, unlocking a world of possibility. Feeling frustrated about the recent passing of my dad, I took my feelings to paper. My hand flew, and before I knew it, I was left with a poem, entitled “Broken Smile”. Once completed, I was speechless. I never understood that I could feel so deeply about the words I had to say, that I could feel so powerful in a world that often rendered me powerless. I felt… like a superhero.

One year ago, my powers began to flourish. My perfect pink notebook became the key to my inner thoughts and feelings… my superpower. I journaled about my day, wrote poems and meticulously crafted stories. But most significantly, tucked between the pages, I always carried a folded piece of paper to keep me inspired: a letter in the most beautiful chicken scratch I had ever seen.

One month ago, I needed my powers more than ever before. I needed them to convey who I truly am for the chance at the future of my dreams as a writer. Except this time, I didn’t need the key because my powers grew into fruition. Instead, I opened my laptop only to type out one sentence… “If you asked me what object to save in a burning fire, I’d save my notebook.”  Ariel A.