I think it’s hilarious that I discovered this on Wednesday so this post just happens to be on a Thursday. I guess we’ll just say this is my first, and probably last, #throwbackthursday.
While cleaning up my computer’s hard drive I re-discovered a folder titled “HS.” I knew immediately what that was, but not what was in it. When I opened the folder I found only a few files, mostly college application related, and it made me feel so old and thus the photo.
I feel like the application process was so long ago, as long ago as the photo on the left, taken in 1988 a month before my fourth birthday. In reality, high school graduation was only eleven years ago and the photo on the right is from some time during my senior year. I was so baby-faced! And I guess still am when I shave and have had a haircut recently—I was carded for a lottery ticket in the last six months! But that’s not what this is about. this is about what I found.
As the title says, it’s about a college entrance essay. Look what I found:
Wrinkled pages, bent covers, and lines creasing the spine, I wake up in a panic. What is the worst thing that could possibly happen to me? Someone could deface one of my books. Each and every one of my books is precious to me. I alphabetize them, I put them in chronological order, if it’s a series, and I even divide them along genre lines. I am obsessive about my books (my friends would say this is an understatement). I don’t let my sister within a foot of most of my books. You might say I have a collection but I prefer to say I am working on my personal library. The library is a good place to get a book if it is not yet out in paperback but not for much else except maybe research.
“A great book should leave you with many experiences and slightly exhausted at the end. You should live several lives while reading it,” stated William Styron. The joy of opening a book for the first time and feeling as if the author wrote the book only for you is supreme bliss. Thrill races through my body as I meet new characters, travel to new and exotic places, and experience life as someone else. Books are the greatest treasure, not only do they offer knowledge but they also allow for escape from the mundane tasks of our every day life.
That, my dear friends, is one of my college entrance essays. My first observation was wow, at least my writing skills have improved along with my vocabulary. And my immediate second thought was the punctuation and spacing! Save ME! I shuddered at the double periods after spacing and the complete under utilization of parentheses 🙂
Although my thoughts have drastically changed about libraries, and even a little about my sister being near my books, all I can really think is how incredibly happy it makes me to know that I wrote one of my college application essays about books. Funny thing is, the other was about writing and I had ZERO interest in going into an English, literature or writing major.
I could not tell you which schools I used that essay for, but I’m so glad to have re-discovered that I wrote one on books and writing! You’ll also be glad to know that I apparently wrote a Canterbury Tales inspired prologue titled The Prologue to the Road to Fame and it isn’t half bad when you get over the rhyming! Perhaps it’ll be revealed at a later date, or maybe I’ll go back and finish it!
Haha! This is great!
Talk about feeling old–I went home to visit my parents and some friends over Memorial Day weekend in May, and I saw someone with whom I graduated from high school. He was nice enough to remind me that we graduated TWENTY YEARS AGO this year. GAH. I almost choked on the food I was eating. Where the hell did the last twenty years go?
It made me so happy when I found it and I was like OMG what was I thinking!?
And WHOA. Yeah my best friend reminds me pretty frequently how long it’s been or us. I just let her know of the big birthdays as she’s 50 days older than me!
(Glad to get a comment – I was concerned I hadn’t seen you blogging much recently! Are you blogging more on IBS instead of yours, or more of a hiatus in general?)
More of a hiatus in general. I’ve been wanting to read more than write. I’ve read SO MANY BOOKS, but I just don’t feel like writing lately. Don’t worry, though, I’m not giving it up.
Haahaa I figured you hadn’t given it up, and sometimes that’s what you need! I was looking at posts from 2010-11 and all I wanted was to read and I did, often missing months of blogging at a time! Good reading!