From my Final Essay, titled
To Apply.
"I sat at my desk, thrumming my fingers on the edge of my laptop, ignoring my Hans Zimmer background music and trying to brainstorm. Interests. The application wanted to know my interests. Really, it shouldn't be this difficult. I had typed out and deleted the same word three or four times. It felt cheesy, and generic, and I was sure that half the student teaching applicants would be half-heartedly writing the same thing. I exhaled loudly, trying to show my frustration to the empty room. There had to be something else I was interested in. But I couldn't think of it, so I pecked out the word one last time. L e a r n i n g.
I enjoy learning. There, you have it. But I enjoy it in a unique way. It's not so much the content as it is the process. And I can't seem to do it halfway; I tend to apply myself completely. I can't write all this into my application. I can't explain my Phases in that tiny text box. My interest-- my hobby-- is "going through phases," although each of the phases is like a short-lived hobby. A hobby helps you relax and puts you in your comfort zone, it comes and goes and that is all right, and it helps you enjoy yourself (Rice, K, 2012; Jacobson, J, 2011). This is exactly how my phases are for me. Although most of my phases only last a week or two, sometimes my phases outlive their life expectancy or don't even have a chance to live. I've liked Les Misérables for over two years, whereas my aromatherapy phase hardly lasted a day."
I like this excerpt because it is so specific. It works well as an introduction by posing a problem and making the reader ask questions. I also like how it begins to explain what my phases are and gives a couple examples.
