Entry 20: Effective Anecdotes

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "When you tell an anecdote, tell it so your listeners can actually see the people you are talking about." A good way to do this is to close your eyes and visualize how a scene would look and sound if you were recording it with a video camera. Think of an anecdote related to your influential person and describe it as a scene that is being recorded with a video camera. Imagine the "frame" of the picture and what is in it. Does the frame move during the scene? If so, how? Does it jump back and forth between speakers? Does it pan around? Zoom in or out? What sound do you hear? Do they come from something inside the frame, or outside it? The scene you choose does not have to be part of your essay, but it should be related to it to help you build background.

• The anecdote that I thought of relating to my influential personal was the story about him doing his college applications. Because he kept on procrastinating, he had a hard time convincing his parents (in this case my parents as well) to let him go to college. The frame of the scene would be panning from my brother to my mother (for example, when they are arguing about something). It would also zoom in on their expressions when they were arguing, and zoom out on their expressions to get both expressions of my mother and my brother. The sound I hear is the sound of arguing as well as yelling, and it comes from within the frame (since if something outside of the frame made a sound, they would be yelling at it and telling it to shut up). This anecdote helps to show results of not making an effort for the future - you might not be recognized and others may not want to help you achieve your goal (in this case, to go to college). My influential person's parents thought that he wasn't showing enough effort. So I learned that when I think about my future, I must take into consideration that if I want anything that I want to be done, I have to show effort and convince others that what I want is the best thing so that they would support me and my cause. 

Entry 19: The Hardest Part

When writing about significant experiences and influential people, the part students have the most difficulty with is showing how the experiences and influences have helped to form the person they have become. Because it is the most difficult part, it needs a lot of extra attention. Considering your influential person essay, write about how the influence has manifested itself in the formation of your character. What concrete examples can you describe that demonstrate the effect of this influence?

•  I believe that the concrete examples of the influence and the manifestations of the influence my influential person had on me are mostly behaviors cause by psychological changes. It can affect several different aspects of psychology. Some of them include the aspect of though, my point of view (how I view the world), and my reactions to different things and different situations, especially those reactions concerning academic interests. Some examples of the manifestation includes the thinking a lot of my future. I start to set up plans and prepare for my future, and this a huge leap for me, because I used to not think about anything at all but entertainment. Because of this, I start to put extra effort into assignments, and this resulted into grades that are quite good (at least until now). Also, I have become more anxious about things (this is the affected reactions part). For example, when I see my grades on Veracross and see that I have either incomplete or missed assignments, I freak out and panic like someone is trying to kill me. And then I run like monsters or something evil is after me to find the teacher and try to solve the problem (you may wonder how I can solve the "problem", but it's basically just trying to get the highest grade possible with a missed assignment).

Entry 18: Your Attributes

Describing the person that influenced you will either show the attributes you value or the ones you don't value depending on if this person positively influenced you or negatively influenced you. Either way, this question will reveal a lot about your values and what you strive to become in your life. Some of the values that admissions officers are looking for are: ability to learn from mistakes, accountability, concern for others, creativity, defined goals, dignity, discipline, ethics, goal-orientation, honesty, humility, introspection, leadership, lucidity, maturity, positivity, self-awareness, team-orientation, uniqueness, and vision. Qualities that they aren't looking for are: anger, arrogance, bad writing, blind ambition, ego, entitlement, immaturity, mediocrity, perfectionism, poor judgment, prejudice against race/gender, and vanity. Look through the two lists and try to determine which attributes you have. Then decide whether you got any of them from your influential person. Write about these attributes and how you came about them. If you didn't get them through your influential person, where did you get them? Did your influential person give you any of them? If not, explain why you chose this person and how they DID influence you.

• I believe that the good attributes I have include characteristics such as the ability to learn from mistakes, concern for others, defined goals, ethics, goal-orientation, honesty, introspection, and leadership. I believe that I cannot decide for myself the other characteristics. How did I get these good attributes and characteristics? I would say that most of them did not come from my influential person. Instead, they are products of nature, results of my genes. I believe that the only trait I got from my influential person is the trait of introspection. This is because one of the actions of my influential person was the trigger or initiative to my introspection of me and my future. I began thinking, what would the future be like, and how would my future change depending on my efforts, both academically and non-academically. As for the bad attributed that I have, they include anger, immaturity, and perfectionism. Similar to the good attributes, I cannot decide by myself the other attributes and characteristics. All of these three traits are caused by nature, by my genes. I am quick to anger (I suffer from mood swings), I am sometimes very childish and immature, and I feel uncomfortable is something is not perfect (at least in my dictionary). Why would I choose this influential person if he only influenced only one trait? That is because the trait concerns my future, which is something that I value a lot.

Entry 17: Oral History

Describe the process of creating your oral history. How did you go about it, what was your subject's response like, what did you learn, both about your subject and about yourself? If you had more time to work on an oral history project, how would you improve upon the process? Who might you choose as a subject? Why? Describe how you feel about the value of oral histories as a source of information.

• The main process for creating my oral history presentation and essay is to ask questions. We need, of course, to know who is the influential person of the interviewed person, what is the influence or the impact, and how the influence manifests itself. The subject's response is mostly informative. I learned about the subject his past, and why he has his present behavior. I learned about myself that I am actually good at creating a story with only a few details given to me. If I had more time to work and develop my oral history project or presentation, I would improve the process by adding more pictures to the presentation slides, and also by giving the background a more informative picture. I believe that I should have also included the reaction of the subject. If I were given the chance of choosing my own subject for my interview, I would choose someone who is a close friend of mine. The reason is mainly because I even though we know each other already and understand each other quite well, it would be better if I understood my friends even more. I believe that the oral histories are valuable most of the time. However, we must always consider the fact that they may be biased depending on the subject.

Entry 16: EMERGENCY

Everyone has seen or heard of emergencies. TV, newspapers, and many other media sources are full of stories of people going through terrifying and life threatening ordeals. Have you ever been in a dangerous or emergency situation, such as a natural disaster, car crash, or a medical emergency? If so, what was the situation? How did it make you feel? If you have never been in an emergency situation yourself, how do you think you would react? Would you be able to control the fear and act effectively, or do you think you would panic? Would you freeze up, or run around in circles screaming? Or would you calmly take control and know just what to do? How can you prepare for emergencies? Do you think being prepared can help a person avoid panicking? In what way does how a person reacts to an emergency reveal his or her character?

•  I have never been in an emergency myself; at least, in my opinion. In my imagination, I believe that when I actually do end up in an emergency, the first thing I would do is swear. A lot. And I mean it. Of course, I would panic while swearing. But after my "swearing" period, I would try to think of ways that will solve the problem even though my panicking. Basically, I try to keep the appearance of being calm because I'm afraid that if I appeared like I'm in a panicking state, other people may then be affected and start to panic even more. I believe that it's hard to prepare for emergencies, because we never know when they happen, and we don't know what type of emergency will happen. All we can do is try to be as cautious as we can about the things that we do, and about the things that other people do. And when emergencies really do happening, one of the most important things that one has to do it to remain calm. Sometimes reactions can show the personality of a person. For example, if someone reacts by running frantically around, we can usually say that these people are the more open and the more active people (and thus not afraid to show that they are panicking). People who just freeze and don't do anything are likely to be introverted, because they do not know how to express their panic and keep all of it in their mind. People who are calm are usually the one who is more capable of reacting quickly to situations.

Entry 15: Disappointment

"If every time you sat down, you expected something great, writing would always be a great disappointment."

At the beginning of a writing project, sometimes called the brainstorming step, the writers job is to simply collect ideas and get something on paper. It can be a time of doubt, as often writers feel like they don't know where to start. Even knowing that we can revise later, we often hesitate to begin. Write about your experience with beginning a writing project. How do you do it? Do you have writers block sometimes? How do you get over it? What ways work best for you to generate ideas and get started?

•  When I am beginning to write a project, I will first think of ideas, and after that choose an idea, and start immediately after a short and brief outline. This initiation process is usually very fast, taking about only five to ten minutes, mainly because I decide on a topic very quickly, and once I decided it, I usually won't think about changing my topic anymore. I usually don't have a writer's block when I start writing - it appears when I am around the middle of the essay. When an idea comes to mind, I will be very excited and write for a while, but after that period I will be seriously stuck on that part. So, I will sometimes change the content of what I am going to write if I have writer's block, because it may in a way help me. Different people have different ways for generating ideas for writing projects. For me, I usually listen to music, or read my novel. Generally, in order to find ideas for topics, I generally make myself relaxed and comfortable. If I do so, then something may suddenly inspire me, or I might remember something that could work as a topic.

Entry 14: Your Influence

Newton's Third Law states: "The mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal, opposite and collinear". How does this apply to relationships between people? In what ways are the actions and reactions between people equal, opposite, or collinear (whatever "collinear" means)? When you think of people that have influenced you, do you think that there was an equal influence the other way? An opposite influence? A collinear influence? What influences do you think you might have on other people? Will you ever end up on someone"s "influential person" college application essay? Would you want to be? Explain.

• An example of using Newton's third law to describe the relationship between people could be when one person treats another person a certain way, and in response the other person treats the first person back in the same way. Another way to describe this would be to say a person influences me, which changes me, and then I in turn influence the person back. I believe that the reactions between people are equal when two people treat each other with the same treatment. For most cases, when one person treats you in a friendly way, you would also treat that person in a friendly way. Reactions between people are opposite when the treatments differ extremely. For example, there are sometimes love and hate relationships that are really complicated (and I would prefer not to get involved into any one of them). As for collinear, I would say it's very similar to the treatments in equal reactions. When there are people who influenced me, there was an equal influence on the other party as well (in the case for my significant person essay), though it was a very subtle influence. In the end, the two of us maintained quite a friendly relationship, helping each other on occasions. My main influence on others involves academic aid for other students (when I can help). I don't think that I'll end up as another person's influential person and I also don't want to be because it's going to make things awkward.

Entry 13: Influential Person

Your next essay will be about a person who has influenced you: Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence. Notice a couple of things about this prompt: it does not say the MOST significant influence, and it does not say to describe the person - it says to describe the influence. As with the significant experience essay, this essay will require you to examine yourself, and to try to figure out who you are and what kind of person you are. From there you work backward to try to determine how you got to be that way. For the last essay, you tried to find an experience that helped to form you. Now you need to find a person who did so. For this entry, try to come up with three or four different individuals that you might be able to use, and for each one describe how your relationship with him or her had a formative effect on the person you are today.

•  The first person that comes up to my mind as an influential person in my life is my mother. Most mothers are very influential. For me, my mom influenced me in two ways: she taught me (or drilled into my head) the sense of responsibility, and she also taught me about domestic skills that will help me survive (for example, doing chores such as mopping the floors, arranging and ordering things into easily accessible places, etc). I appreciate these skills a lot. Along with my mother comes my father. My father influenced me the most by teaching me indirectly that my parents and my family have spent a lot of effort and money on me, and that I should appreciate what I have and not take anything I have for granted. He teaches me this because when I see him hard at work just to earn money for the family, I will feel a sense of shame if I was slacking off. My brother also influenced my thinking. His going to college got me to actually start thinking about college. It makes the whole "going away from home" ordeal seem more realistic, and not just something that everyone is talking about. His influence tells me that I shouldn't slack off, because college is coming soon, and if I don't work hard, maybe I won't even get to go. Finally, Pamela, our head of school, is also a very influential person to me because she is a motivation for academic improvement, among other things. I also learn to really appreciate her hard work and sacrifices for us.