As the tears stop streaming down my face and I finally stop violently retching out the contents of my stomach in the bathroom of a Golden Corral, I finally regain my composure. Then I hear it: Dancing Queen by ABBA faintly playing in the background while I start to question all of my life’s choices. I never realized how often music is playing everywhere at all times.
To preface this, I am not a musically inclined person. I can’t play any instruments, and I don’t listen to music in my free time, but many events in my life have forced me to acknowledge the rhythmic nature of the world we live in. It bewilders me to the point that it’s almost completely distracting. Sitting down in class while bitter sweet and buttery smooth jazz fills my ears and enters my soul, I feel my entire body being engulfed by a surplus of erratic emotions. It’s overwhelming. It’s fascinating.
Hearing the slight hum that my teacher does along with the music while looking over papers gives it an extra layer of complexity, while at the same time hearing all my classmates tap away at their keyboards while writing their college essays adds an element of chaos. It turns an already captivating concept into a unique product that can never be perfectly replicated.
People also have a rhythm. The way they speak, the way they write, and even the way they walk is special to each person. Most of the time you can even tell exactly who is doing what just by analyzing the cadence of their actions. This means that a multitude of millions of unmatched melodies march magically, month after month every millisecond.
For millennia, we as humans have been mindlessly moving methodically to the beat of our own metronome. This made me wonder, what beat am I moving to, and what does it sound like? How did my heart end up making the sound it does? Sometimes, the beat I follow is loud and aggressive, fearing nothing and no one, and sometimes, the tempo of my soul is faint and docile, fearing everything and everybody.
Maybe I was influenced by the music I listen to, or the other media I had consumed in my life, or maybe I copied parts of other people’s flow and added it to my own rhythm. If the latter is the case, where did they get their rhythm from? These thoughts constantly race through my mind at a rapid pace. Where am I? Who am I? So many questions, yet so little answers.
The minute I realized everything had a sound was the same time I realized that life is very loud. True peace and quiet is not really possible when thoughts bounce boundlessly around in my brain. Complex concepts completely distort and discombobulate the direction that I thought my life was going. Even while writing this, just how much has my heart changed?
As Dancing Queen started to die down, I finally took a deep breath, wiped my mouth, washed my hands and returned to my family. However, the music in my mind began to roar louder than ever.
Writer’s Reflection
Hello? Hi? Howdy? How do I start this reflection? I’m not sure, but hello my name is Rakil and I have to write a reflection essay for my college essay. Honestly I really struggled writing my college essay. Being vulnerable isn’t one of my strongest qualities and finding a topic to write about was surprisingly difficult. I hope this reflection can serve as a guide on how to write a college essay and hopefully future students looking at this reflection can have an easier time writing their college essay.
One of my main problems with writing my college essay was trying to find the motivation to write. I would sit in class wondering what I should write about without actually making any progress on the assignment. One thing that helped me actually start writing was creating another document and just typing out all my random thoughts whether they related to the document or not. This helped me manifest any and all ideas I had into a physical form so I could look at them. The next thing I would recommend would be to write about something that interests you. It doesn’t have to be something that you thought about your entire life, it could just be some passing thought you had while eating lunch or walking in between your classes. Either way you should write about something that is interesting to you that you can create something interesting to read. That leads into my next tip which is to have fun with writing your essay. Because your college essay is entirely your own, you have a lot of creative freedom. Don’t be afraid to add fun words and phrases that you like.
Your college essay doesn’t need to be deep, philosophical or complicated; it can be simple and joyful as well. You don’t have to write about a sad moment in your life, you could write about a happy moment or an embarrassing moment that you had. In my essay I start with an embarrassing moment to hook my reader into the rest of my essay. It works well because most of the time if you can shock your reader in the very beginning of your essay they will be more interested in reading the rest. My last tip for writing A college essay is that once you find a flow try not to lose it. Once I get into the flow of writing I can write hundreds of words in a very short amount of time. They may not all be perfect but that is why you go back and edit mistakes. I hope that you take these tips and apply them to your writing and I wish you the best of luck in writing your college essay.
