Ever since I was very very little it’s been a dream of myne to go to Oxford. I used to say it jokingly, sort of like that I’d be J.K. Rowling when I grew up, as well.
Well… here I am now, having just submitted my application to Oxford with a book with my name on the cover next to me. And that right there is enough to make all the stress of this whole process more than worth it. In short… my Latin teacher and my mommy are my heroes.
Originally, I was under the impression (having only briefly read through the application section on Oxford’s website,) that I didn’t have to write an essay for them and that I just needed to fill out the UCAS form and send in an essay I had already done for school that had been marked up. So, when I sat down a week ago thinking I was being so on top of things sending in the application a week before the deadlyne, I got the unpleasant surprise of finding out that the UCAS form itself included an essay. Not only that, but it asked for an essay that the one I had been working on in my Ethics class for the first three weeks of school didn’t work for. I was left with one week to write a phenomenal essay justifying why I’m qualified to study the thing I care most about–writing–to my dream school that I probably wasn’t going to get into anyway. No stress, right?
So this week was crazy enough trying to do all my school work and do this essay. And do it well. So when I finished it this morning I was thrilled with the world and excited and finally shaking the stress of getting it done. That was my second error in judgement.
Apparently, the UCAS form requires you to send in the reference at the same tyme as the form. Not through your guidance counselor separately a week later, as my school expected. Lucky for me, I found this out today, Saturday morning. So my poor journalism teacher, Marcey, who rushed to get my recommendation done by this absurdly early deadlyne of October 15, ended up not being used. I tried to reach Marcey today but she wasn’t home. At this point I was literally bawling my eyes out, thinking I wasn’t even going to get to apply because I had been too stupid to read the application directions carefully enough. My mom suggested driving to Marcey’s house as a last resort since she lives five minutes down the street and in Amherst you do stuff like that since it’s so tiny. No one was at Marcey’s house. It was totally empty and dark. I’ve lost all hope for even having a shot at Oxford at this point. I half-heartedly suggest driving to the school to see if my guidance counselor happened to be there on a crazy chance. She wasn’t.
But… the field hockey team was just finishing a game on the front field. And the coach of the field hockey team happens to be my Latin teacher, Kelli, who I’ve had for all four years and gone on a trip to Italy and Greece with. So two hours before the deadlyne, I begged her for a recommendation. She had written me a rec for a scholarship for the trip two years ago, so she happily tweaked that and sent it right along to UCAS. Taking Latin and Kelli’s love of field hockey may well be what get me into my dream school.
So it’s in now and out of my hands. Phew. *Deep breath.*
Here’s my essay if you want to take a look. I was so upset that I had to take out my Oscar Wilde quote at the beginning because of the length requirement, but it is what it is. And hey, I can add it back in here 
……
“I have no quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. That is why I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who can call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.”
-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey
My fourth grade self would be unequivocally proud of who I am today, on the verge of turning 18. I am still very much the same Anglophilic little girl who loved anything eccentric and insisted that she would someday become J.K. Rowling. Despite the harshness of reality, that dreamer, hell-bent on changing the world with her words, has survived and is even more a part of me today than ever before.
Words have always been the equalising, clarifying lens through which I see the world. Through the haze of everyday life, beautifully strung words have always had the power to re-awaken every reality-dulled nerve in my body. Fictional characters have always seemed infinitely more relatable to me than the people who inhabit this world. I’ve taken this love of words with me into nearly every aspect of my life.
A considerable chunk of each summer of my teenage life has been spent away from home working on writing in some capacity. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to spend four summers with the Johns Hopkins Centre for Talented Youth programme, the same programme the likes of Lady Gaga, Evanna Lynch, and Mark Zuckerberg call home. At CTY I was able to take college courses and stay on campus with other kids my age who were as unabashedly nerdy as I was. We learned how to combine intense studying with almost equally intense goofiness. We wrote ten-page analytical essays on The Truman Show’s portrayal of reality and read Kant and Hemingway in between activities such as ‘Screaming Loud Things In Unison’, traditions such as Drag Day and Love Tape Day, and weekly rave-esque dances. I made friends who will always be a part of my life and learned more in those combined twelve weeks about the written word than I could imagine and my time spent there is a constant reminder of my passion for learning.
During my sophomore year of high school I joined our school’s newspaper, The Saber Scribe. Junior and senior year I was co-editor. Journalism gave me a new perspective on writing and an outlet to make a difference in our community. My words were strikingly powerful and had visible, direct consequences. The summer of my junior year I was nominated to attend the Washington Journalism and Media Programme. We examined the effects of modern journalism in Washington, DC staying on campus of George Mason University. Although journalism is not the avenue of writing that I plan to take, it was an invaluable experience with the power of the written word.
My friends, whose passions for words rivalled mine and would argue about the Brontë sisters at lunch and went on ‘classics binges’ with me, got me involved in the NaNoWriMo program. NaNoWriMo is a challenge in which participants have the thirty days of November to write a 50,000 word novel. The idea is to encourage getting the words down, no matter how cringe-worthy, and silencing the inner-editor until after the first draft is done. I completed NaNoWriMo both years that I undertook it, and it’s through NaNoWriMo that I got my book published the second year.
Finishing Tink was one of most challenging, stressful, and worthwhile things I’ve done. November, when I had to have the 50,000 word first draft, and June, when I had to wrap up editing, both involved copious amounts of caffeine and limited amounts of sleep. Despite all of the hard work that went into it, I still genuinely wanted to be writing at the end of each day. I fell in love with my characters and revelled in the feel of playing with the words until I got them just right. There is nothing to compare to the feeling I got when I first held my book in my hands, tracing my fingers across my name on the cover and flipping through the pages knowing that all those words were mine. It taught me that I have enough will power to do anything that I set my mind to. I’m not quite J.K. Rowling yet, but it’s the first step and now that I’ve taken it, I’m up and running, confident that I can do incredible things and make a difference in the world.
