Chris

Hello.  My name is Chris.  I'm 18 years old and I'm supposed to be writing college application essays right now.  Two are about "My Greatest Accomplishment", one is "How I am a Part of the Whole", and the final one is supposed to be on "My Dream", for which I considered simply putting "Attending your school." but I figured they're probably get lots of those kinds of responses and they'd probably end up going immediately on the reject pile and I really would like to attend their school, despite the amusing possibilities they leave themselves open to with an essay title like "My Dream."  Or maybe its because of those amusing possibilities that I want to go there.  Maybe they know exactly what they're doing.  But I sure don't know what I'm doing.  Other than that rejected joke of an idea, I really don't know what I'm going to write for any of these things.  It's not like I don't have accomplishments or dreams, and I'm certainly part of my whole family or my whole school body or even the whole world.  That's not the problem.  I can write something from my heart, something about who I really am, but that's not really what these schools want, do they?  They want me to write something great.  They want me to show my abilities, that I can communicate.  Not only that, but I have to choose the right accomplish, the right dream, the right whole.  Which one should I choose?  That's why I'm not writing essays.  That's why I'm sitting here just writing whatever happens to come to my mind.  None of this will ever see the light of day, but it helps me get my thoughts out there.  I need to sort through it all before I can actually do anything with it.  What is my greatest accomplishment?  There are certainly things I'm proud of, but some of them are so meaningless.  Beating that one computer game when I was seven, I can't even remember the name of it now, but my 10 year old brother got stuck and I stepped in and beat it for him.  He was amazed, and I think a little jealous.  At first he thought I was cheating, but I think he realized I wasn't.  I was proud of learning to walk a tight rope, too, but who cares about that?  And when will I ever use that skill?  I'm not that great at it and even if I were, it's not like I would run away and join the circus or something.  That's not what I want to do with my life.  So what do I want to do with my life?  That could be the answer to "My Dream" and maybe it could help me figure out my "Greatest Accomplishment" too.  I'm okay at math and science, but I'm not that passionate about them.  Oppositely, I'm more excited about things like art and music, but not very good at them.  It's like I hear things in my head or see them in my head, but when I try to get them out there for other people, it just doesn't turn out right.  That's more of a failure than an accomplishment.  I do like people, but I don't always understand them.  I think that might be why I like them.  They are such a mystery.  So maybe my dream is to understand people.  Maybe I want to study psychology.  But then would that take away the very thing I find so fascinating?  That great mystery would be gone, so would the study of people loss its appeal?  I think the thing I like the most and am actually somewhat good at, at least from a memorization standpoint, is history.  There's some understanding of people there, but they can still remain a mystery.  I think history is part of what makes me hesitate so much to write these essays.  I've submitted essays for contests or even just for school before.  They never turn out to be as good as I think.  But I am good at remembering dates, how things happened, sometimes even why they happened.  I can see the patterns, too.  It's amazing when I read current news articles or political speeches and think to myself, "Didn't we read something about this in history class?"  It's like life is a cycle.  The mystery is why.  Why do we repeat history?  Is it really just that we don't understand it?  I guess history is the thing that interests me the most.  I'm not sure I would say I'm extremely passionate about it, like jumping up and down for job at discovering some old book or newspaper excited, but I certainly want to learn more.  And history is the class I look forward to the most.  I think I could form a dream from all of that.  But what is my accomplishment?  I've never really done much with history besides gotten an A in it.  I've gotten As in other classes, but history has consistently my highest scores, at least for the memorization pieces.  Well, that's not really true.  I do okay with the interpretation and analysis pieces, too.  I already indicated that.  But yeah, no really stand out accomplishments.  I do watch the history channel sometimes, but that contributes more to the dream part, not to the accomplishment.  It's hard to really think of the kind of accomplishments colleges want to hear about.  I don't really do a lot of big stuff.  I volunteer at a soup kitchen Saturday mornings.  At first it was because my mom made me, but I found I actually enjoy it.  Is that an accomplishment?  It doesn't seem that big.  I don't think they really want to hear about my tiny bits of community service.  Besides everyone does community service.  They're forced to by school or parents or something.  I play sports, but I don't stand out in any of them.  It's more something I do to stay healthy and fit than to actually compete.  Some of my relatives are pretty inactive and I've seen the bad stuff that comes from that.  I don't want to repeat what they did.  History again, you see.  Still nothing big.  Maybe I can write about little things.  Or maybe I can just make something up.  I wonder if they'd realize I wasn't even talking about me.  I probably don't want to lie on my college applications.  That wouldn't be a good way to get started.  Maybe I could use the soup kitchen thing for being part of the whole.  That might work out okay.  I don't know.  I'm running out of ideas.  At least I think I should be able to get started on my dream.  Funny that my dream is going to history when I can't think enough about my own past to come up with a good answer to the accomplishment thing.  Oh well.  Maybe I'm not the only one to have this problem.  That could have to be with being part of a whole, too.  Or maybe it's just a part of me thinking about this right now.  Maybe I'm a part of my own whole.  That's too confusing.  I think I'll just write something about the history bit for now.  At least something came out of this brain-dump session.  I guess now we'll just have to see if its enough.  Time to go write a college essay or three.  Chris out.