Winning Entry

The insanely long and weird prompt:

Imagine you are a participant on the popular television show “Survivor.” The format of the series is simple: a group of diverse people are sequestered on a remote island and presented with numerous challenges. At the end of each day, the “tribe” votes certain members off the island during a torch-lit ceremony, and the remaining individuals vie to be the winning sole survivor. Here is your challenge for your honors essay. There are five members of your tribe: 1) you, 2) a person majoring in the sciences [e.g. biology, physics], 3) a person majoring in the fine arts [e.g. art, music, dance], 4) a person majoring in the humanities [e.g. literature, history, religion], 5) a person majoring in the social sciences [e.g. psychology, sociology]. The time has come for eliminations. You all sit down in the “circle of torches” as the host approaches. Justify your existence on the island. What distinguishes you from your peers? What useful qualities make you a valuable member of an engaged learning community, a survivor deserving of a place on that beach? Why should your torch not be extinguished?

My response/essay:

Sitting on the edge of my seat, my eyes wander around the circle and I cannot help but wonder who will be voted off tonight. To my right is a brilliant member of the tribe who is majoring in the sciences and to my left is a talented member majoring in the humanities; across from me sits a gifted fine arts major; next to that member is another valuable and nervous member, a social sciences major. We are all different, we all have distinctive abilities and qualities that make us valuable members of the tribe; additionally we are all nervous and wanting to stay even if for just one more night. However, the members on my right, to my left, and in front of me are strikingly similar versions of me.

I myself am double majoring in the sciences and in the humanities; more specifically I am majoring in biology and literature. Like the science major to my right, I am inquisitive, motivated, and driven to find the answers to existing questions and those that arise in my own mind. Both of us willing to take risks in order to those answers. I enjoy challenges and always strive to overcome them, a quality which is key to any member of this tribe and of any learning community such as the one I find in Columbia College. Paralleling the humanities major on my left, I am creative, thoughtful, quietly reflective, insightful, and appreciative of points of views other than my own. Being open-minded and holding strong convictions is not a commonly found quality, but I see it clearly in my fellow tribe member and humanities major, but also I see it in myself. In order to be a valuable member of this tribe and of an engaged learning community, one has to be open-minded to the views and ideas of others because they might have insightful input to share, but one must also not be easily swayed from the convictions which we hold. They are too similar to me not to be mirror images or connected halves of myself, their torches burning brightly like mine.

Looking across the circle, I see the fine arts major sitting in front of a brightly shining torch. This is a talented, quirky, passionate, committed to excellence, and unique individual unable to see a cut-and-dry black and white world. Although I'm not majoring in the fine arts, I've been seriously involved in the fine arts for the vast majority of my life: I play the violin, guitar, and piano; I compose and study music of all genres, which I could not live without; I am a dancer at heart and love to learn and experience the dances of different cultures; I appreciate the arts on various levels that most people around me do not. I am intrigued by how similar this tribe member and I are, how our qualities are easily distinguishable from the others, and how useful people find our creative ideas. Sitting nervously next to the fine arts major is the social sciences major, a strong individual with a particular sense of self and community. As a tribe member, the social science major is always involved and posing new questions, and we are very alike. This social science major is reflective and motivated, paralleling my own personality and usefulness to our community and tribe.

As the host approaches, I panic briefly, thinking "if I am so similar to these tribe members then surely I will be eliminated tonight." However, I remind myself, that even though I possess all the qualities I see in my fellow tribe members, I am all of them in one person and I have even more to offer because I am so eclectic. What distinguishes me from these tribe members and from my peers is my confidence in myself; a sense of duty, honor, and commitment; personal strength; a caring and compassionate character; and a willingness to help and further others as well as myself. Hoping these qualities I see in myself are enough for the host and the members of the tribe to pull me through on more elimination round, I cross my fingers and wait. I know I am an extremely valuable member of society through my willingness and drive to get involved, I am passionate about helping others; I know I love to learn new things and this thirst for more knowledge in all areas of life make me a non-expendable member of an engaged learning community such as Columbia College and this dwindling tribe.

Our slow-walking host eventually reaches our nervous circle of tribe members and tells us about our day and who is the unlucky member that is sadly leaving our tribe. We had all just learned more about each other, friendships and alliances formed. I shall not tell you who it was that was voted off the island and out of the tribe, only this: my torch remains unextinguished and even if I had been voted off, no one could extinguish the flame that burns within me.

non-poetic blog entry (attempt 2)

So most of my blog posts have poetic elements to them or are complete poems themselves, and that is the way I express myself. When occurrences in my life don't go exactly the way I want them to or afterwards, I find myself thinking of what I want to write. It's sorta just the way I'm programmed, I don't do very well outside of poetry and the more poetic prose (prosetry). Anyways, the last entry was entirely about my dear grandmother, was entirely un-poetic, and it helped me express what I was feeling better than anything else, so I thought I'd give it a shot again. I was gonna let this go last time it got deleted but good god do I need to write this all down, I'm too unhinged not to.

Anyways, since my grandmother's been here (16 days and counting), I've been somewhat less than unhappy for some reasons. She talks AT me, not to me, not with me; she nitpicks at every little thing I do; she observes quietly and then brings things back up for her advantage; she irks me like no other. For example, two nights ago she waited until everyone had left us alone so she could reprimand me not he way I had just treated my sister: I should look her in the eye when I talk to her, I should not be so condescending, I should be more patient with her ideas and questions, I should remember that she is only 11 and that she doesn't know as much as I do. Good god, I have two parents sitting right next to you and they are plenty enough people to reprimand me for doing things incorrectly, eve if my sister deserves it for being so goddamn annoying all the time. She waits until everyone is gone and talks AT me for hours about things that don't concern me that I never wanted to know about, as if they're supposed to serve as examples for me later on.

Well dear grandma, here's what I've learned in the past 16 days:

• don't marry the first guy you date, who is also the man your parents want to force you to marry
• don't marry said guy who is abusive, jealous, and controlling of every aspect of your life
• don't marry a guy who comes in the middle of the night to declare his love, breaks your bedroom window with his arm and then pours his blood out on your window sill to proclaim his undying love while he's drunk
• don't marry him after you dumped him
• don't have children with this man, though they will be the only thing you don't hate about this marriage
• don't eat so much out of depression that you outgrow your clothes
• don't give yourself away to the first man that comes along and "electrifies your soul"
• if the swim meet has been cancelled because it's pouring down rain and I'm soaking wet, the smartest thing to do is to dry myself off with a soaking wet towel right before walking out into the pouring rain to get into the car
• after we scramble into the car, all soaking wet, do NOT, I repeat DON'T EVER suggest we go eat out somewhere “nice and dry”, it will not end well, also DON’T start talking about hot chocolate and treating me like a baby, I’m not in a good mood and you shouldn’t try treating me like a child to cheer me up cause you’re the one getting me down
• don't gain 30 pounds in a year and then try to lose them with a diet you keep breaking every single day and then complain that you don't fit into your clothes and that the scale MUST be broken, of course it's broken
• don't complain during dinner that it's this food making you fat, you can choose not to eat it
• if I lie awake at night on my bed without actually going to bed, there is a reason I'm doing it, not because I'm a lazy sloth and NEVER call me that again, because I can wake up on time and be ready no matter how long I stayed up "doing god knows what"
• when we're eating in a rush, do NOT offer me food you absolutely know I HATE when I'm cranky because you're making us run late, I will not laugh and I most definitely will not appreciate your attempts to hug and baby me, don't touch me
• if we have to be somewhere at 9 o'clock, then isn't leaving the house at 9 o'clock going to make us late? NO FRICKING DUH we're gonna be late, but you just had to take ten minutes to get ready after we were all in the car waiting for you because you decided at the last minute to come along
• if you begged to come along, don't complain while you're forced to wait through a 10 minute swim practice, I can hear you from the water. When we get out of the water to leave, don’t ask how it was with that fake smile because I heard you say “finally” when the coach pulled us out of the water

As useful as these lovely lessons are, they are of no use to me, especially in the context in which you tried to teach them to me. I don't care, I honestly don't, it drives me up the wall that you think I'm listening. Though, these lessons may come in handy for you, especially if you’re trying to stay on my good side and if you want me not to choke you next time you asked if I remembered to clean myself completely in the shower. I’m 17, I’ve been showering alone for quite some time now and I think I know what I’m doing. Stop coming into the bathroom to talk to me while I shower, there actually is a reason I’m blaring music you hate and locked the door.

When she starts talking, I imagine myself punching her, like you see people imagine in movies, but I could never ever bring myself to do something like that, not to an older relative who holds so much power ad sway over my mother and father. I used to not have such an issue with her and her nitpicking observativeness, but I guess that was years ago when I was a lot younger and so much more passive, a dependent doormat for others. But guess what? I'm too much of an independent thinker to allow you to run my life with your "helpful suggestions,” I wish you were gone. Mommy sees how frustrated I am, she calms me down, tells me to “let you be grandma” in quick English so you don’t understand. She knows how you frustrate me, she knows you’ve gotten worse over the years, oh yes, you have and I’m just guessing that every year will just get a little bit worse....

Goody for me, I’m leaving soon and that’s much too far away for you to come visit as often. I’ll enjoy staying at your friend’s houses up in South Carolina and North Carolina, I hear they’re very beautiful. Your friends will see me more than you ever have, from the times I’ve met them I’ve gathered that they are nothing at all like you and I wonder how you’ve managed not to drive them away like you’re doing to me.

Sigh.... relaxed.... calm now..... breathing.... I feel so much better now

non-poetic blog entry

I spent the last hour writing a post, then something very strange happened when I tried to publish it: the post disappeared. I feel no need to spend another hour rewriting it because I really do feel so much better now, my frustration at my grandmother is gone and I feel calm/at peace/ relaxed. I no longer want to choke her and I'm just glad I have somewhere to write this all, though I wish it had been published.