PERSONAL NARRATIVES – June 2019 |
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“Because It Is My Name“by Molly Nicole Parsons (’20)
For their last child to join the family, my parents had the brilliant idea of having my three older siblings name me. Although Buttercup from The PowderPuff Girls was a favorite among all of them, my mom overruled the name. My dad eventually convinced—or brainwashed, according to my mom—my siblings into choosing two names: Ben if I was a boy, and Molly if I was a girl, the names of two great-grandparents I would never meet. Instead of Buttercup Parsons, Molly Nicole Parsons was introduced to the world on June 15th, 2001. |
College Essayby Adrian Krowicki (’19)
Who is my older brother? Maybe he is an aspiring, clean-cut businessman, just inches away from the biggest sale of his life. Maybe he has piercings, tattoos, green hair, and a love for poetry. Maybe he is thinking about me just as much as I am thinking about him. Who is my older brother? I wish I could answer that question. |
College Essayby Gwen Bernick (’19)
In pre-Socratic Ancient Greece, Heraclitus hypothesized that the world was governed by a divine logos. His cosmic law suggested a spectrum of existence, that all things were in a permanent state of flux. Day and night were one, according to him, and each only derived meaning from the other’s opposing existence. One cannot exist without the other: light and dark, certainty and doubt, love and loss. |
College Essayby John Stothoff (’19)
To me, some memories are in motion, but the majority are stills. Not singular stills like staring at length at a heavily-stroked Van Gogh in a museum, but fast. Fast like slides rotating in an old Kodak carousel projector. The memories are tinted with trials and tribulations. My story, my slides, are not, perhaps, the norm for my high school, for my friends, teammates, and teachers. And it’s not because I am 6’4″ in cleats and hold school weightlifting records. It’s not because I enjoy Hemingway and nonfiction more than video games, but rather enjoy obsession and occupation over idleness, a trait borne by memories. |
Personal Essayby Hannah Flemming (’20)
It was hot. And when I say hot, I don’t mean warm, I mean boiling hot. Though this weather wasn’t unusual in Thailand, it still didn’t make doing outdoor activities any easier. Especially hiking. Which is, naturally, exactly what me and my conservation group were about to do. We had gotten to the mountain, only a few minutes from the village where we had been staying, and I could only focus on one thing: how beautiful it was. |
“The Worth of a Whittled Life“by Molly Shea (’20)
Kindergarten was the first time the amusing tale was read to me. The aspect my elementary mind adored the most, was the simplicity of the story. The Giving Tree, features a young boy who loves to play in the branches of a particular apple tree. The tree loves to provide the boy with shade, apples, and a place to climb. As the boy grows older, he visits the tree less and less frequently. The boy “matures” and desires more grown up things like, money, a house, and a mode of transportation. Although the tree misses the days of the boy frolicking beneath her leaves, she is happy to bestow upon him, the things he requests by sacrificing her apples, branches, and trunk. The story comes to a satisfying conclusion when the boy, now a man, returns and all he wants is a place to rest; and the tree, now a stump, is overjoyed to let him rest upon her. |
“Sneakers“by Paige Lipoczky (’20)
I skipped down the hill of bright green, freshly cut grass. My blue and white sneakers hugged my feet, perfectly clean and new. Reaching the edge of the yard, I pushed passed the thick bushes and into the woods. Looming trees towered above, the canopy of leaves protecting me. Sunlight snuck through the leaves and shined on the forest floor, guiding me towards the dinosaur’s footprint. |
“Sugar & Nice“A College Essay by Kayla Solino (’19)
“Princess Naisha, can you please pass me the sugar for my tea?” “Of course Princess Kayla, I think Mr. Teddy might like some too!” At four years old, this was a snapshot of a memory that I chose to hit save on. Naive and untainted by the world, the plight of princesses and the destruction of dinosaurs were the only things that preoccupied my small mind. Everyday was a new adventure. And Naisha was always with me. |
