Personal Statement

Prompt #1:

1. Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

During my freshmen year, I was accepted into a program called Wall Street Wizards. This was a program that taught financial literacy to minorities. I was excited for the first class, but when I walked into the room, I saw that I wouldn’t fit in. Everyone in the room was African American and came from low income families and single-parent families. They were complete opposites of me.
Over time, I was adopted into the “tribe” by my two teachers, Bill and Alex. I learned that both of them were completely dedicated to teaching and enriching the students in their program. Unlike many others, they don’t simply talk like they will help us; they actually put their energy and effort to give us huge opportunities that we would never have if we had no connections. They put countless hours in our monthly classes and pulled in many favors to get us into shareholder meetings and meeting CEOs of companies such as Pandora and Jamba Juice. They taught us skills that we would need not only in the business world, but in our futures no matter what career we plan to go into.
An opportunity that I hold especially close to my heart is when I was chosen to be a judge at a competition called the Ashoka Contest. During this competition, I judged with many experienced people in various different fields of work. The judges were separated into three different groups to evaluate four groups each. The judges in my group were one of the contestants last year, a woman who started her own company, and a teacher at San Francisco University. During deliberations and breaks, I grew especially close to the woman who started her own company. This woman helped me realize a skill that I possessed, one that will drive me to strive for my ambitions later on. As we talked, she commented the level of the questions I had been asking the different youth groups.
Throughout the various presenting groups, I continued to ask questions because after a while of asking and analyzing the finalized business plans and budgets, I realized my own interest in business. After I asked a question, the woman took the microphone from me and proudly announced to the crowd “When this girl talks and I close my eyes, she sounds just like a girl who came out of business graduate school.” You can imagine how surprised I was.
Throughout the day, I had people asking me what grade I was in. My reply was “I’m a sophomore.” Preceding this answer, a particular man asked “Oh really? What college do you go to? Berkeley?” I was stunned. Later, Bill and Alex both informed me that people were asking what grade I was in and how old I was. I was absolutely stunned.
These past years, I embraced my skill and my love for business by taking time to study up on stocks, follow, analyze and stay up to date with the business world. Most frequently, when I’m in the car heading to school in the morning, I would turn up the station where the talk show host informed the listeners about today's stocks and where they stand. Never before has getting a compliment on something that I had no idea I had a passion for, awaken the love for business I had. This is why I want to be a financial analyst. I want to be one because I love looking at numbers and businesses. They absolutely fascinate me. But above all, I want to be someone in the financial world because then, I can go back to my community and help youth realize the importance and the joy that they can have in the business world.

This is my goal, my dream, and my aspiration. I want to be able to make a difference in this world through enriching the youth. The difference I want to make in the youth, is firstly, the perception of business and stocks, and most importantly, helping those who many have a passion for it, realize that they have it.

Prompt 2: Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

My decisions and my life are deeply shaped by my personality. For the most part, I am unafraid to take reasonable risks, I’m very open minded and I’m told that I care too much about others and how they feel. But the trait that I feel shapes who I am the most is my perseverance and my undying drive to win which originated from my father’s teacher that ultimately became my motto in life.
Winning isn’t everything and I realized that long ago. Still, when I fail to reach a goal I aim for, I am disheartened at first, but I always pic myself up, learn from my mistakes ans start over again. With this, my confidence was built and I was able to maintain the thoughts tha told me that I can do it. As a child, my dad always told me “It’s not over until it’s over.” Basically, fight to the end because you don't know what may happen if you never try your hardest.
This became my motto in life. It also held true and strong in a city-wide speech contest I participated in in my sophomore year. I was confident with my speech all along, but just four days before the citywide contest, my teacher, who was a judge at the school wide contest, gave me all the scoring and comment sheets from that round. Turns out, the speech I was so proud of wasn’t as good as I thought. I spent the next two days editing and editing my speech to death, trying to say what I wanted while keeping within the three to five minutes requirement. When I was done, there were only two more days until the contest. Now, all I had to was was practice and that’s what I did. Because of practicing so much, I nearly lost my voice, but it seemed to pay off because when I walked up to the podium the day of the speech, I was confident. All the practicing paid off and I won first place at the contest.
I won because of my strive to never give up and the motivation drove me to keep trying till the end. I will forever remember and cherish what my dad’s lesson to me was because this led me to success on more levels than just winning something.

Final Brisingr Post

            I'm reading the book Brisingr, the third book of the Inheritance Cycle. Christopher Paolini is so incredibly talented. Of course, I've read his first two books of the Inheritance Cycle: Eragon and Eldest. Paolini wrote the first book, Eragon when he was only 15. Even though his books come out around 3 years after one another, they get better and better. Brisingr was the best book from this series. It has a lot more action and a lot more going on compared to the other ones.

"As gently as he could, Eragon asked, 'Was it Faolin?' 'Yes.' she said, releasing the confirmation almost as a gasp. 'Did you love him?' Casting back her head, Arya gazed up at the twinkling sky, her long neck gold with firelight, her face pale with the radiance of the heavens...'It does matter, because I regret it, and I shall not tolerate it. Did I love Faolin? How would you define love? Fore over twenty years, we traveled together, the only immortals to walk among the short-lived races. We were companions...and friends.' A pang of jealousy afflicted Eragon. He wrestled with it, subdued it and tried to eliminate it but was not altogether successful." (197)

     At the end of the first book, Eragon, the main character, Eragon, shows his feelings for Arya. Arya is an elf who was the carrier of Eragon's dragon (Sapphira)'s egg. She was in search of the egg and because she was captured, transported the egg to where Eargon lived. Needless to say, the egg hatched for Eragon. All throughout the second book, Eragon fights the love he feels for Arya. One time, when Eragon confessed his love for Arya, Arya simply shot him down saying that they each had their duties and Eragon especially had to concentrate on training his magic in order to defeat Galbatrorix. In this book, Eragon still shows his love through jealousy. When Eragon and Arya are on a scouting trip, Eragon asks if Arya ever had anyone she's loved before. Here, I feel sorry for Eragon. Eragon shows a sense of jealousy that clearly he does not want Arya to recognize. Arya on the other hand, realizes Eragon's feelings, but does not want to return them. Further on in the book, she does express her care and her lover for Eragon, but it is only through the small gestures of worry she shows for him when he is going to battle or recovering from wounds.

In Brisingr, Christopher Paolini uses many characters and mythical creatures used very often today in teen books. He uses dwarves, elves, dragons, and magic. It's amazing that he is able to captivate a teen's attention through his writing because as a frequent reader, I always read books that have similar themes or characters. Really, there is nothing special added into Paolini's books. Still, Paolini has a way of drawing a reader's attention with the intricate plot he sets up and his writing style.
    In this book, there are many conflicts. All these things happen simultaneously in Brisingr. There are separate types of language being used constantly: English, the ancient language, and dwarf language. Still, I never get lost reading it, not even with the three made up languages that are included in the dialogue and spells.

"…as they did wherever he went- nor the dwarves he passed in the hall, who greeted him with variations of “Argetlam.” The worst one is Iorunn, Eargon decided. The dwarf woman was the grimstborith of Durgrimst, a powerful, warlike clan, and she had made it clear, from the very beginning of the deliberations, that she intended to have the throne for herself." (435) 

     Brisingr was written in a unique way. It was written sometimes in a more precise way of speech and then in other times, a more casual way. Paolini uses casual speaking to describe while using precise speech for when characters talk. The characters are especially enticing and of course, Eragon, the main character is the most enticing of all. One major conflict that Paolini builds up to but doesn't really address in this book is Eragon's struggle with not being able to kill. Eragon learns that everything has life. In the midst of battle, he feels sympathy for Thorn, the dragon, or the soldiers he is fighting. He can come in contact with their "being" or their conscious and can feel what they feel. He refuses to take a life unless absolutely necessary which had already caused issues for him. I'm curious to know what will happen with that.

            There are around 60 chapters in Brisingr and each chapter is around 10 to 15 pages long and the chapters switch from Eragon to his cousin Roran and occasionally, back to the Varden and Arya. But because of how organized the sequence of events are, the chapters seem to flow together smoothly.

            All in all, this book has captured my attention and I look forward to the next book. The chapters are well organized and the different plots ultimately converge into one large one which makes the book all the more interesting. I really look forward to reading the next book.

Comments on Blogposts

Leon Liang:
I think that this is a really good blog post because of how organized it is. But maybe you can go into more depth about the plot twists that you mention earlier.
"Another thing that Brisingr was better than the first two books was that it’s plot was more complete than the Eragon and Eldest. Unlike the first two books, this book had double the length compare to Eldest nearly triple compared to Eragon." Also, you don't talk about a lot of the points you mention. You touch on a lot of subjects. but never really talk much about them. 


Kaila:
I think that this blog post is good because of how concise you put your points. Maybe put some more ideas in your body paragraphs rather than just in your introductions. I especially liked this part of your essay: " Its random and weak. basically this book has weaknesses because the author was writing it to sund like an autistic kid, and he did a good job, except most people do not think like autistic people, so there are going to be weaknesses regardless. His style of writing is a weaknesses in itself depending on what your taste in writing is."
It showed that you really did look into how the writer's style is built up within the book.


Phuong:
This is a good book review. Sometimes you look too much into one specific thing and don't cover many of the other ideas you bring up. When you talk about the chapters being an issue, you kind of become repetitive in your response to it's format. You should also put some transitions between your ideas and your points because it seems really abrupt when you switch off ideas. The book seems really interesting! I want to read it now too. Overall this is a good book review though :D