My last post on the virtues of writing one’s own college essay may read as though I felt my own undergraduate personal statement was beyond reproach. I assure the reader that this is not the case. In evidence, and thanks to a propensity for squirreling away every bit of electronic writing that I have done since the advent of modern digital memory storage, I offer the following, unedited copy of said document (after the break, to spare the uninterested).
I ripped it off from an essay that I had written in my junior year for English. I would suggest that it was a conscious reaction to the inanity of the “Tell Us About Yourself” style of college application essay question, but that would be giving my past self far too much credit. I’m probably lucky that it reads that way. It is a remarkably arrogant, pointless work, written by a child who was, at the time, remarkably arrogant, and somewhat pointless, but it did serve to get me in to college, certainly more of an indictment of the standards of the State University System of New York, than it is the facility of this particular piece.
Who I Am
I’m a miracle of modern science. An endless source of wonder, controlled by my hormones. I’m a one-eyed man in the land of the blind.
I don’t sleep through school, barely passing my classes. I’m not captain of the football team. If you look in a remedial reading class, you won’t see me. I’m not the kid who sits in the back of the class, trying my best to do absolutely nothing. I’m not the kid who complains when I have to read more than three sentences daily. I’m not the kid who lights up in the men’s room, because smoking is cool. I’m not a social drinker. If I was eighteen, I would rather cut of my pinkie finger, than vote republican. I don’t see myself joining the Hell’s Angels, the Freemasons, or the police. I will not spend my professional career in a cubicle.
I am the kid who puts out no effort, and gets good grades. I’m the one who defends his principles. The one who has been called a faggot so many times that he doesn’t even think it’s an insult anymore. If you look in the AP classes, I sit in the back. I know how to work a computer. I’ve done my drugs, and I’ll probably do them again. I’m prepared to leave the country if I get drafted for a pointless war. I’ll puke on your shoes if I think it’s funny. I’m the kid who has his own opinions on everything, and I’m able to think for myself.
I plan to be a poet, a peyote Indian, or a double agent. I’ll be a tragic soul with an ethnic sidekick. I’ll live my fantasies, and do whatever I damn well please. I’ll party with legends, and start a religion. My words will echo the plight of the nation; I’ll be a folk legend. I’ll be tactful in the subjugation of my enemies, and my wife will be as famous as I am. I will not die alone, and when I do I’ll have the world’s biggest funeral. My bedsheet’s will fetch millions at auction. I’ll be the world’s greatest tragedy.