University of Chicago Application Essay, 2007

It's college application season for high school seniors, and whenever that time of year comes around, I start feeling slightly nostalgic for late 2006/early 2007, when with no help and little idea of what to expect, I began writing my own college essays. 

My dream school was University of Chicago. I loved the fact that UChicago boasted an "uncommon" application (back then) and was excited about tackling one of their eclectic writing prompts. I wrote four drafts of the "long essay" and didn't finish the final one until the day the application was due.

Today I was sifting through old files on my computer and came across that long essay. The prompt was a quote that I vaguely remember choosing and writing about, but in the years since 2007, I completely forgot what I actually ended up writing about. Forgot until today, that is.

For the first time ever, I'm making my UChicago long essay available to the public (if you choose to read it, you'll be the first since myself and the UChicago Admission Committee). And if you're curious, yes, I was accepted to UChicago, but somehow Stanford managed to win me over.

"Don't play what's there, play what's not there" - Miles Davis

I just don’t get it. 

I don’t get a lot of things.

I completely overanalyzed Rene Descartes’s “I think therefore I am.” I construed it to be an argument against nihilism, then I just left it alone. But months later, I was still baffled. I studied every single word, tried to find deeper meanings in “am” and “think.” What thoughts does he refer to? Dogs think, too. What about trees?

One day I told a friend of mine the embarrassing secret, that I did not understand what Descartes was trying to say. “You don’t get it?” He said, “it’s so simple. We think, so we are. There’s nothing to it.”

We think, therefore we are. Nobody must think as much as me. And it’s strange, because the more I think, the further from reality I feel. Sometimes I’ll honestly begin to cry; as my thoughts cave in on me I’ll feel utterly alone. What’s the point? What’s the point? I’ll ask myself over and over. But I don’t know what the point is. So maybe, the more I think, the less I am. “I think, therefore I am not.”

Now Miles Davis is advising me to play what’s not there. And I suppose it’s all very simple, go beyond the expectations, be original, right? But I can’t settle with that interpretation, logic (if you dare to call it that) forces me to contradict. Ultimately, the way I see it, what is the difference between playing what’s there and what’s not there? People may tell you it’s important to stand out, but why? So others will notice you. So you can become famous. [So you can get into an amazing college.] These things all appeal to us, but how important are they? How do we evaluate importance? Life is just an endless stream of questions and half of them can’t be answered. Skip the questioning, at the end,  playing what’s there and playing what’s not there are the same thing, in terms of “ultimate significance,” that is.

Then also, there’s the fact that the act of “playing” suggests an interaction with an object, once an interaction begins, what’s not there is forced to be there, or else there is no interaction. I mean, even Miles Davis played a trumpet, which is very much a real thing, which is “there.” He should’ve just said, “play something.” It would’ve been good advice.
But maybe (probably), once again, I’m looking at this the wrong way. Consider this new interpretation of mine, preceded by an orderly jumble of story/experience/thought from, and pertaining to, my childhood.

On particular days of the week I like to flip through a photo album I have. It’s a mess of pages between the cover of a worn flowery binder. In the beginning you have my birth certificate, “It’s a girl” congratulation letters, pictures of me when my skin was still awkwardly reddish brown. As you keep flipping pages, you come across me when I had chubby cheeks, me being held by every cousin, every friend, me when I started recognizing this place we call World. Pass a few more pages and it’s me with my first best friends, me when my sister was born, and then, at the end, my mother is expecting my younger brother.

Whenever I rediscover these pictures I start to remember all the hundreds of things that happened to me when I was little. I remember the house we lived in, a two story apartment on Yeager Road . It was a brick house, next to a playground. I’m going outside with my father, or my sister. It doesn’t occur to me that we live in government housing or that the people who used to live in our house did drugs and abused their children, or that the kids next door show signs of psychological damage because of their father leaving them. It doesn’t register with me that the woman a few doors down is a bad role model for her son, with her tendency to walk around her house in a bright pink bra and her lack of housekeeping. What about the weird groundskeeper-- the one with the mustache and green cap? Now that I think about it, I was entirely unaware then that he hinted to having a messy past of his own. Maybe back then I didn’t have the capacity to judge. I guess I must’ve seen people for what they were, not what I heard they had been.

I’ll admit that I’ve changed. I judge now. I gossip, too. I’m blindly enslaved by pragmatic pessimism. The summary of my childhood shouldn’t be told the way I just related it, because when I remember the feeling I felt, growing up on Yeager Road, I feel infinite peace with my past, like times could’ve never been better. I never thought the groundskeeper was odd growing up, I had so few people to compare him to. He painted doors, trimmed hedges, and came to the annual block party; he was hero of the neighborhood when he set up toy horses, the kind you could ride that were attached to the ground with a huge spring. The pink bra lady, I thought, was a fabulous mother, because she had a vintage Barbie collection. She let me borrow them once, and when I returned them she told me I could keep a few, which I still have today. Her house was a treasure trove and she was a daring pink pirate, who will forever remind me of cheddar cheese (although I‘m not sure why). A child doesn’t understand “psychological damage.” The girls next door and I would pretend we were cooks and make mudpies, or we’d pretend we were runaways and hide in each others’ bedrooms, all the time we’d push each other on the swings and my sister would say, “up to the honey trees” and reach for the sky. I remember one evening, before we went inside for dinner, I hugged Amy, the younger of the two sisters. “Friends forever,” she said. And that’s what we were, friends. That’s what we all were.

I’ve seen a lot and learned a lot since then, but maybe what I’m playing right now is all wrong. Maybe I think, therefore I am, is as simple as it sounds. I existed when I was five-years-old, I don’t see why my status should be any different today. Although I do think I’ve slightly twisted what Miles Davis says, he was only asking for it when he advised people to rise above normal. And right now, my heart remembers a song it always knew, but almost forgot it could play.

End note: Reading this 6 1/2 years later made me cry. When you read old writing of yours, you sometimes think of your young self not as yourself, but as your child. You suspend judgment and just let yourself acknowledge the talent the child possessed back then. 

Why the Reflektor Won Me Over

"Reflektor" - Arcade Fire

The self-appointed connoisseurs of music have either heralded "Reflektor," Arcade Fire's latest single, as AF's poppiest, danciest piece yet, or have gingerly laid its vinyl body on the turntable, and in between lyrics, have pronounced it "good" and not worth disregarding, but still a darker twin (a reflektion, if you will) of Funeral, Neon Bible, and the ever-popular, Grammy-winning, Suburbs.

After my first listen, after my second, I was about ready to take the track off my imaginary turntable and shelve it besides Arcade Fire's 2003 EP, something I keep around because I love Arcade Fire so much, not because I actually listen to "My Heart is an Apple" all that often. Then, I gave "Reflektor" a third listen, and something began to stand out to me. So I played it a fourth time, a fifth, a sixth, and then I knew I had to write about it.

So here I am, on September 9, writing about a song that made its worldwide debut today. Writing about it right now, because I think you should know it isn't just the poppy, dance-y, shiny piece some would have you believe.

It's genius.

Not in the same way Funeral or The Suburbs were genius-- although it will make sense that the creators of those albums would have the intellectual capacity to come up with something so metaphorically beautiful and raw as Reflektor.

Now, before I tell you why I've changed my mind about Reflektor, I want you to watch the music video I've posted above and give a good listen to the lyrics as you do so.

"We fell in love, alone on a stage" is maybe a bit of a red herring-- how many times have we heard that? The thing is, this song isn't about falling in love "when I was nineteen," although that's another line early on. As the song builds, it's apparent that this love, no matter how seemingly cliche, is something real.

The talk about heaven, interspersed between anecdotes of young love early on in the song, becomes more and more eager, turns into a plea: "If this is heaven, I don't know what it's for. If I can't find you there, I don't care."

The search for "The Connector," which only yields a dim "Reflektor" becomes more than a catchy adage. To me, this is symbolic of the search for God, for a higher power that can infuse meaning and connection into our otherwise fleeting existences on Earth. The agnostic, even the devout believers, may sympathize with Win Butler, when he asks, "Will I see you on the other side? We've all got things to hide."

As one of the believers myself, I know that I have plenty to hide. If faith wasn't so powerful a thing, the sea of doubt would have washed the last lights of my faith away long ago. Sometimes I hide the fact that no matter how deep I search scriptures and immerse myself in the realm of prayer, I feel myself running into Reflektors, only guessing at whether or not there is a Connector.

Now that I am married to a man I love very much, I too wonder if I will see him on the other side. Will this lifetime be the only one we spend together? I desperately hope it isn't.

You see, before I fell in love with Jared, I didn't know you could love another person so deeply. I want to believe that the way I feel for Jared is a sign that we'll be together always, even after we die. I can't imagine living my life without him, and I certainly wouldn't want to live in any afterlife without him. Nor would I want our lives to end without the promise of a new chapter, rendering our love some earthly illusion, reflektion.

"I thought I found a way to enter, but it's just a Reflektor. I thought I found the Connector, but it's just a Reflektor." "Thought you were praying to the Resurrector, turns out it was just a Reflektor."

If we found a Connector, would we be able to tell it apart from a Reflektor?

Aspen Grove

For my best friends, Jared and Lauren

If kneeling to touch the graves of my friends,

the moss has not yet moved between the incisions

left in the ground, I will know there are children

who continue to bring the sad mysteries of their hearts

to this place above these tombstones;

children who speak their questions in voices so soft,

only the dandelions can hear them now

If in deep August, clouds of grey

move through the valley, leaving gossamer trails

of grief on my ankles, I will not stop to gather

the hens from beneath the eaves;

I will not forget to walk this stony garden

collecting the leaves that settle

with the weight of continuity

If the visitor who knelt here before me

has left seven mandarin oranges,

I will bite away wax and skin

and leave the sweet fruit for the sparrow

who, perched like the psalmist,

folds the beauty of this place

into a song only God can understand

An aspen grove, from above,

appears to be many yellow trees

but when the heat of the Colorado plateau

places fires between the fingers

of the Trembling Giant,

I will remember that an aspen grove

is truly one tree

that for eighty thousand years

has refused to let go

If in a blizzard I come to your graves

wearing only the thin dress I don in my sleep,

lead me back to the aspens

where one day a girl will find

the small emblem of my spine

sprouting from the sky above the mountains,

touching the embers of these trees

I could not wait to burn after the spring.

Trujillo

Pink centimeters of corn

the kinds that are too tough

you chose them in the market

Parakeet hanging up beside the linen

laundry line, low hanging electricity

My feet often burn when I sleep

Corn, feed the grey pieces to the parakeet

Pull a linen drape across her cage

Is it a pity that she does not speak?

The market: it is a cool day

for you to walk cane-less

one heel thicker than the other

You ask me to steady you

as we climb the ruin

you excavated as a child

before they brought electricity

washing machines

Take two rocks between your fingers

bend with your strong knee

to touch my burning feet

Kernels of corn -- I know you

Pull back the drapes

parakeet, one heel thick

Atlantic Letter, Third Draft

From this knee-deep tide, between the sand

and the tongue of the Atlantic sea,

the white of sails is reflected in the waves.

The fathers of our fathers stand

beneath the cosmic map, a western wind.

The leaves here are new,

though for many millennia they have grown

in the Old World; seeds caught between the heels

of knights crossing the desert of what is now

pronounced Lebanon.

Love is a strange thing.

When in the morning I drove to these low tides

I wanted to believe that I had forgotten

the hollowness in the center of your back.

We cannot choose the parts of the body we will forget.

The moon wants to forget that in one thousand years

she will break, scatter through the darkness

touching the arms and legs of her earth.

Dream Mappers

For your reading pleasure, a writing exercise. This morning I had a horrible case of writer's block. After what seemed like hours of nothingness, I did what I am sure my mother would have recommended I do-- I applied some essential oils to my wrists and the back of my neck. Then I laid in bed for approximately 45 minutes and just tried to clear my mind. Just before I got up, I was thinking the mantra, "as a writer, it is my job to build a bridge between the logic of the world and the logic of dreams." Where did that line come from? I do not know, but it was very helpful in getting this writing exercise done.

“When I’m dreaming, certain things make a kind of logical sense—but as soon as I wake up, the whole dream-structure of logic just collapses, it falls apart.”

“Yes, yes, that is very common.”

“A long time ago, I decided to give up trying to ‘understand’ my dreams. The whole business is just too frustrating for a rational thinker like me.”

“Many of our clients describe themselves as rational thinkers, Mr. Walker. Seeking to understand a dream is a rational pursuit; rational people seek to understand each aspect of their lives. And here at Dream Mappers we help our clients build a bridge between the worlds of sleep and wakefulness.”

Miss Sonari (at least, that was how she had identified herself over the phone) spoke in a quiet voice that at once calmed and unsettled Donovan Walker. Donovan imagined her sitting cross-legged in a dark, candle-lit room in the Midwest, perhaps surrounded by tarot cards and small trays of incense. He knew that in reality, she was probably sitting at a desk, reading from a Dream Mappers call center script while assessing how much she could charge him for an initial consultation.

The phrase, rational people seek to understand each aspect of their lives—the phrase was so good, it must have been canned. Yet, Donovan could not help turning it over in his mind—when he dismissed dreams as not worth understanding, had he dismissed along with that an entire sphere of undiscovered logic?

“In wakefulness,” Miss Sonari continued, “we are instructed on how to behave, speak, think. Are you an educated man, Mr. Walker?”

“Yes, I hold a master’s degree in engineering,” Donovan paused, and then continued, “I read often, books, newspapers, blogs. I have traveled to many places in the world. I do consider myself to be educated in the many ways one might come to be educated.”

“When you travel, do you travel alone?”

An odd question, Donovan thought. He could not anticipate where Miss Sonari was going with her questions, so, intrigued, he answered, “When I was in college, I used to travel with my friends—sometimes there were five or ten of us. But lately, I have preferred to travel alone. And I prefer to travel to places off the beaten track—the towns that are not accessible by railroad, the ruins that have not yet been restored. Why do you ask?”

“When Columbus discovered the Americas, he was with a crew of men. It was also known that thousands of native people already occupied the Americas, meaning, Columbus did not so much ‘discover’ the Americas, as he was among one of the first Europeans to disembark on her shores. Still, we love to imagine that one man single-handedly discovered two continents over eighty times the size of Spain.”

As Miss Sonari talked about Columbus, the strange aura that had cloaked her voice lifted. Donovan wondered if she worked at Dream Mappers part-time and studied history at the local state college part-time. He wanted to ask her, but she still had not made her point, so he tabled the question and waited for her to continue.

“We revere the lone hero. We have been trained to revere the lone hero. So it makes sense that you have developed a taste for traveling alone and for exploring the supposedly unexplored. Society has made you this way—has made us this way.”

“So, what you’re trying to tell me, Miss Sonari, is that my sensibilities, beliefs, values are nothing more than societal constructs?” Donovan had read his Nietzsche, his Foucault, his philosopher-of-doom just like the next college-aged disciple of truth, and he was getting impatient with Miss Sonari. Now he was sure that she was nothing more than a college student piecing together lines from a script with tidbits she had picked up from her professors. “Look, this isn’t anything I haven’t heard before. I was mistaken when I called Dream Mappers, and I am sorry for wasting your time.”

Donovan was about to hang up the phone, but being a generally polite man, he waited for Miss Sonari to say goodbye. Instead, what followed was a thirty-second period of silence, and then, “are you still on the line, Mr. Walker?”

“Yes,” Donovan responded reluctantly. He suddenly felt foolish for waiting for her to say goodbye. She was not a relative or business associate, not even an acquaintance; she was more like an automated operator than a human at this point, and he probably should have just ended the call.

“You are a rational man, Mr. Walker, but you have been recently troubled by a recurring dream. It is a dream so disturbing to you that after dismissing the logic of dreams for so many years, you have decided to call us here at Dream Mappers today, at 5:30 in the morning, for help deciphering your dream.”

Miss Sonari’s voice again became calm and quiet. The way she spoke, it wasn’t something you found in a call center script. “Please forgive me if I came off as pretentious earlier, Mr. Walker. What I wanted to tell you was that society trains us to interpret symbols in one way, but dreams, dreams are private, and teach us all our own individual brand of logic.”

Donovan lit up the screen of his digital alarm clock. It was now 5:53 AM, approximately thirty minutes until sunrise. “I have been having a recurring dream,” he said. Scenes from the dream began to flash in his mind, and he recalled how he suddenly woke up at 4:33 in the morning, on the ground beside his bed, with one arm fully extended under the bed, as if trying to grab hold of something just out of reach.

Miss Sonari was silent, and something about her silence struck Donovan as genuine. “Let me tell you about it.”

A bird flies over the Grand Canyon, a national park as dream inspiring as any. 

2013 Update

I've gotten the question "do you have a blog?" quite a few times in the last couple of months. The answer is, of course, yes I do have a blog. This is my blog. And it is woefully out of date.

I say woeful not just because it's been three months since my last entry, but also because a lot has changed in those last few months. Here is a quick list of what's up with the Victoria of 2013:

-- She has finally gotten really into creative writing again. Studying fiction, poetry, and doing a lot of non-fiction work this quarter. Writing is really the best.

-- She almost went vegetarian, but failed after her first grocery trip. Maybe in 2014?

-- She moved to a new house in East Palo Alto (and has amazing roommates, which makes it the best).

Here are a few things that have not changed:

-- She still procrastinates more than she should (exhibit A: writing this when she should be reading for class).

-- Her hair is still the same length. Had it trimmed over winter break and it has already grown back.

-- Same music tastes. Arcade Fire will forever be my teenage/twentyage favorite.

-- Same wardrobe. Donations always welcome.

-- Favorite book is still A River Sutra. Let me know if you'd like to borrow a copy, but be forewarned that you may not like it.

Happy New Year to all. Expect more photos, stories, and poems later. 

Here's a favorite from the Hawaii Museum of Art. Left hands are mischievous. Even decay thinks so.