Admission Essay

Admission Essay Each one starts with a quote, which Calvino uses to explain and explore complex scientific theories. For example, he takes the reader through the creation of the universe, mitosis and meiosis, theories about space and time, dinosaurs, the moon, and many more. The complex tapestries he weaves are hauntingly beautiful, sharing only a common narrator, the ageless Qfwfq, who relays each story as though having witnessed it. This is my favorite quotation from my favorite book, The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela. I read this book for the first time in eighth grade while exploring the causes and consequences of the Mexican revolution. I am not simply interested in St. John’s; I am mesmerized by it. The thought of reading forty books in class over the school year excites me. The image of being surrounded by people similar to me thrills me. The knowledge that this may be in my future invigorates me. There is not one book on its own that calls to me, but knowing they are on my horizon fills me with anticipation. Consequently, my interest and passion in other things only brought me loneliness in learning. For example, the piece “t zero” is one of my favorites. This short story is about a hunter, Qfwfq, who has just fired an arrow at a lion. The lion leaps at the hunter, and in that second the hunter can’t tell if the arrow will miss or not. He has a 50/50 chance of killing the lion or being killed by the lion. The hunter then considers the possibility of remaining frozen in time in this moment of uncertainty forever, where every possible outcome could still happen, but hasn’t happened yet. The hunter spends the rest of the story thinking through all the possible ramifications that come with choosing to exist only within a single second. He refers to this moment as “t zero,” where t is time, and the moment he is experiencing is point zero. Although staying at t zero is appealing, upon the end of the story the hunter must inevitably move through time into the next second where his fate will be decided. When my mom handed me Cosmicomicsin New York and said that I might like it, I was pretty skeptical. I loved tracing out the shapes and letters, turning the pages, pretending Icouldread. The only thing I didn’t like about books was when people would read them out loud . When I finally learned to read, my love of books only increased. In elementary school I could always be found with a book in my hand. Lack of love causes loneliness, and I think the reason I have been lonely in pursuit of learning is because of a lack of love from the people who love what “I love”. What I considered important was different from what my school considered important as all their interest goes into exams. They talked about what the quickest way to memorize is and what is going to be in the test to memorize. I appreciate nonfiction more than I did as a child. Ever since I took my first philosophy course, when I am seen with a book in my hands it is a philosophical work. I am reluctant to fall in love with book someone recommends. But once I started it, I realized that I couldn’t help falling for it. I read books about pioneers, astronauts, ordinary kids doing extraordinary things. I wasn’t quite able to read the original, so I was forced to resort to the “No fear Shakespeare” version. In my opinion, Ludwig Wittgenstein beats William Shakespeare any day. Sometimes the difficulty makes reading the book more rewarding. There is nothing more satisfying than finally understanding a passage I couldn’t understand before. That moment of clarity makes the reading worth it. Then, when I’ve finished, I go back and read my own insights. It would be all too easy to let my constant busyness and the distractions of daily life keep me from trying to understand the world and my place in it, but I won’t let that happen. I will forever be aware of myself and others, and I hope to never act on an unconscious bias. I know that Descartes was thinking thateverythingtold to him by his senses might be wrong, but I think his revelation applies more usefully to behaviors and biases we learn from a young age as well. However, my reading material has changed since elementary school.