dreamer

[tinymonkeyt]

EDIT: entered in contest
dont want judges to think i was cheating or anything >.<
---------------------
Ok, so that ^ was an essay i wrote for this scholarship thing
its not great, i know
and most of you wont even bother reading it (or you'll say something like tl;dr)
but if you see any mistakes, or have any suggestions
please do tell
its due on friday so speak up!
it is a true story, although some points may be a little exaggerated
like i dont know fully how to breakdance, but im learning still yeah?

 

[Densetsu]

I read the whole thing

Overall it's a good essay, but is there anything in your life that has had a profound impact that would have made you want to start dancing? It would be a stronger essay if you can say that you draw your motivation and inspiration from something other than a relatively recent movie.

I like how it mentions that you let go of your reservations and fears and just did it. You can probably develop the part of your essay where you describe your feelings when you dance a little more.

Also, what exactly is the scholarship for? Is it dance school? Depending on what you're writing it for, you'll have to tailor it specifically for that scholarship.

Kind of off-topic, but you do hip-hop and break dancing? My brother used to do that throughout junior high and high school and got really good at it. You should post some vids of your moves sometime! Don't know if you've ever heard of the Jabbawockeez, but their crew leader Kevin Brewer is a close personal friend of mine. I'm a fan of hip-hop dance myself (I can't do it, but I enjoy watching it).

Didn't know you could play the piano either...I've been playing for 10 years!

 

[tinymonkeyt]

actually the scholarship just provided 2 essay topics and this one was supposed to be about a risk that i took (trying out dancing) the scholarship is just providing a fund for college. if my essay gets picked, i get 1,000 USD towards my college tuition

for for dancing, keep in mind i only took a summer's worth of hiphop (it wasnt even that much)
and im still working on breakdancing. i can do a few freezes, and im getting the gist of the footwork
but i still need a lot more practice til i get the basics down.
of course ive heard of jabbawockeez; theyre only AMERICAS BEST DANCE CREW lol. wow. its so interesting how small this world is. you are so luckyy :jealous:

well i quit piano after playing for 6 years (its ironic cuz my moms a piano teacher) but i still know how to play a few songs! (like titanic lol)

thanks for the nice comments :]

 

[Densetsu]

Yeah, for a time KeiBee and I lived in the same neighborhood and we went to high school together. Back then he used to come to my house and we used to watch anime and play SNES and PlayStation. He's a total Japanophile and loves RPGs, both of the video game and of the table-top variety! We used to discuss our favorite materia combinations for FFVII and power-leveling strategies for D&D...he's as geeky and down-to-earth as they come when you hang out with him! I tried calling him recently but his phone always goes straight to voice mail these days, and then his voice mail is always full and I can't leave a message. I'll try to catch him next time they perform in my area and get a pic with him and post it up in the Temper Pics thread or something.

I actually can't read sheet music, but I can play just about anything I hear if I practice it enough. I learned classical pieces like Mozart's Rondo alla Turca, Pachelbel's Canon in D Major, as well as contemporary pieces by David Lanz, Jim Brickman and others, all by listening to CDs. Haven't had much time for hard-core practice in the past few years, but now I still try to pick up piano accompaniments to popular songs every once in a while. Alicia Keys is one of my favorite artists for practicing accompaniments.

As for your essay, if the prompt was to write about a time when you took a risk and I picked up on it instantly, then you've succeeded in addressing the prompt

Good job! You could probably add more emphasis on the point of how important you think it is to pursue your passions, and not just to dream it, but to live it. You want to come across to the reader as someone who's highly motivated and takes initiative.

Good luck on the essay, hope you get the $1000!

 

[UltraMagnus]

hmm......

I read the whole thing.

I really admire people with musical talent, personally I can't play anything more complicated than the triangle

 

[Densetsu]

I think those "---" are supposed to represent indentations since adding spaces to the beginning of a paragraph won't do anything when you post. The sentences will just show up as if you never indented at all if you try.

 

[miruki]

I have to agree to Densetsu, the fact that you used the movie as your inspiration for dancing in the story makes it seem a bit of a weak inspiration... especially the way you wrote it: [I remembered watching “Step Up 2,” ...´] - you see it sounds a bit like the movie did not leave that much of an impression on you but rather was the only thing you could think of after panicking about what thing you should do.

imo you should skip the "I remembered" thing and go for something that happens afterwards, after you thought of what to do you either saw the movie and you suddenly knew, this is it, this is what I want to do! But still, the movie isn't the greatest way to go imo, what comes to mind is, a friend takes you along to one of her hip hop dancing lessons, she gets you all excited about it, you see those awesome dancers move and yearn to dance with them, if you used that, the disappointment of the young children in the beginner's course would seem even more realistic, since you would have already seen your friend and all the other ppl of the same age dancing the way you want to dance too.

But besides that I like the story. Especially the closing sentence, nice work.

 

[Hehe Moo]

I know you probably don't want to be corrected by a 13 year old... but I'm known to correct people, so please bear with me

I found two minor mistakes:

"Oh man, what have I gotten myself into?"
You had been speaking in past tense the whole time, so I recommend you change that to:
"Oh man, what had I gotten myself into?"


The second one is here:

"Furthermore, I forced myself to attend and watch breakdancers the school during their afterschool practices,"

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here... the bold bit doesn't really make sense.


Overall, it's an excellent essay. Good luck with that.

 

[Densetsu]

I know you probably don't want to be corrected by a 13 year old... but I'm known to correct people, so please bare with me

It's "please bear with me."

The corrector just got corrected

 

[UltraMagnus]

I think those "---" are supposed to represent indentations since adding spaces to the beginning of a paragraph won't do anything when you post. The sentences will just show up as if you never indented at all if you try.

oh, that silly way of doing paragraphs, I thought no one did that these days

but, I was more talking about places like
QUOTEI witnessed the entrance of my classmates—five year olds barely old enough to

 

[tinymonkeyt]

@miruki
thanks! ill tweak that part a bit

I know you probably don't want to be corrected by a 13 year old... but I'm known to correct people, so please bare with me

I found two minor mistakes:

"Oh man, what have I gotten myself into?"
You had been speaking in past tense the whole time, so I recommend you change that to:
"Oh man, what had I gotten myself into?"


The second one is here:

"Furthermore, I forced myself to attend and watch breakdancers the school during their afterschool practices,"

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here... the bold bit doesn't really make sense.


Overall, it's an excellent essay. Good luck with that.

ahh i see
for the second mistake
it was supposed to be 'afterschool' which im not sure is one or two words (i dunno how it changed to 'the school' though

I think those "---" are supposed to represent indentations since adding spaces to the beginning of a paragraph won't do anything when you post. The sentences will just show up as if you never indented at all if you try.

oh, that silly way of doing paragraphs, I thought no one did that these days

but, I was more talking about places like
QUOTE

I witnessed the entrance of my classmates—five year olds barely old enough to

yeah, i think i got hyphen happy (or dash or w/e you call it)
i think a comma would be fine there.
oh and the "---" in the front was to separate the paragraphs cuz indentations dont work
i didnt want it to be a big wall of text
i have indentations on the real one, dont worry

 

[Isaiah]

Isn't posting your essay on the internet a little risky? Meh I read the whole essay and it was pretty damn good