College Essay Final

Kiyo Keanini
September 23, 2010
Period Four
Essay Topic:

SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY: Your personal statement should being to our attention goals, hobby and experiences or other information that you would like is to know about you. What personal qualities, talents, thoughts, ideas or characteristics make you stand out as an individual?

I want to go to New York University(NYU) but this is not the college that I picked the prompt from because ccouldn't find a prompt on the NYU website.

The Loves of My Life

It’s Saturday, sometime in January of 2000 and my mom yells at me to wake up. I pull up my pants and weave it through the buckles and tie it in the front, I slide my arms through my overly sized gi top weighing down on me. I grab my triple zero size labeled white belt and a bottle of water, walk down the stairs and head out my door. I cry the whole way there, remembering stories from my uncles about judo being a brutal sport, I thought I was going to get punched and kicked around since I was probably the smallest there.
As we parked and my mom tried to get me out of the car I cried even harder because I was scared and I had no idea what to expect. I finally get inside the building and it’s a little early for practice while the mats are being set up. I don’t dare help them since I can barely hold myself up with the gi on my back. I wait until the young man with a black belt stands in front of the class and everyone lines up in front of him. Then they bow and spread out across the mat. I watch as they swing their arms back and forth and twist their body left and right. Soon after they start, an old scary man interrupts my concentration and starts talking to my mom. I watch and nod and then my mom starts motioning me to the mat. Now I really start crying because the only thing going through my mind right now is, I don’t know this guy, he’s big and old and creepy looking, I don’t know what he’s going to make me do and I’m just going to embarrass myself.
Eventually I figure out I’ve been crying for too long, and my mom won’t budge, so I suck it up and step onto the mat. He ties my belt for me and it looks nice just like his. He tells me to lie on the ground which I hesitate to do but end up doing anyways. Then he tells me to slap the mat with both my hands, after a while he tells me to turn to my side and slap the mat with my left hand and then my right. I think to myself, well this isn’t that bad. After we do some other exercises I sit up, cross my legs and watch the class for a while. In the end I line up with the group of people standing in front of the man with the black belt and bow. This moment would be the first of ten years of practice, tournaments, camps, injuries, friendships, lectures, trophies, blood, sweat and tears. Judo.

I pull out my phone, on the screen I see 4:00 PM, I step down out of the bus, and walk towards the mall. I walk pass lots of stores getting whiffs of fried, grilled, steamed and baked foods, I arrive at Hawaii Music Works and sat down on one of the benches. My phone rings so I answer the call from my mom, she tells me she’s on her way, so I pull out my homework and wait for her. When she arrives she passes me a long heavy black bag and I sling it over my shoulder. Then I push open the clear door and walked through the hallway to the room with many pianos, guitars, a drum set, amps, chords, and some small stools. I take a purple seat towards the back where I always sit. I unzip the black bag, grab the neck, and pull the guitar out. I unravel the chord and plug one side into the guitar and the other into the amp. I also seize the green half folder with hundreds of sheet music overflowing the folder.
Four other boys walk in and do the same as me, we start conversing while we wait for our teacher to finish her previous class. After she comes in and closes the doors we start tuning our instruments. On the right of me a boy a year younger ready to play lead guitar, next to him a bass player starting to tune his own bass, across of me the second bass player a year older setting up his bass and on the right of me his brother, a drummer plugging in his electric drum set.
We all look at the same song as our teacher starts the track. The drummer kicks his bass and we all add onto his beat before we know it we’re repeating the song again and again, stopping constantly trying to control our rhythm, tune, and volume while playing together. Every Tuesday for a couple years perfecting the simple music of the guitar.

I lift my head off my pillow, just enough to see the clock above my feet its 7:00 on a Sunday. The sun is blaring in my eyes and I know its God calling me to wake up and get dressed. I put on my black t-shirt with the big word “KIDS” across it. I finish getting ready and stumble to the kitchen and sit at the table where the rest of my families start to trail in. We wait until everyone is ready and head to the car.
We drive to a theatre, park and walk down a long set of stairs. We turn right and walk towards the sign in table. My brother types our last name on the computer and prints out our name tags. He passes the return tag to my dad so he can pick him up after and we say bye to him. We walk towards the classes upfront, I stop at the third door and my brother walks ahead to the last door. I unlock the gate holding in all the anxious two year olds.
I greet the teacher and walk towards a cluster of girls playing with a little kitchen set. I start to play with them and make believe we’re making eggs and bacon in the plastic pans the size of my palm. Then I see a parent with their son clutching for dear life to their shoulder. I run to the gate as the parent pulls the boy off of him and sets him on the ground, then he bursts out crying. I pick him up and try to calm him down for a moment while I thank and reassure the parent that he will be fine. Then he starts crying again so I run to the brightest, exiting looking toy I can see and try to entertain the distraught boy. He finally calms down and starts to play with some other kids, then another parent walks up to the gate and another, girl this time, doesn’t want to leave her parents.
A couple of other kids have the same experience and although it seems irritating, but I enjoy the challenge of lifting the kids’ spirits. We all gather on the colorful mat and read a short bible story together. Usually one or two of them sit on my lap or next to me as we listen to the teacher. Then we close our eyes and pray for the day and for the food.
“Thank you God for this day, thank you for the story and thank you for our friends and the food we‘re going to eat amen”
Then I run to the hand sanitizer and watch as they all hold out their hands and wash them. We pass out their food and watch them drop it all over the floor and then they run and ask us for more. While they’re eating it gives us time to prepare their next activity. We set up a craft for them on the tables and they slowly start to occupy the seats. We all work on a project together and wait for the parents to come back from church.
They start to show up at the gate and one by one the class gets more and more empty. After everyone is gone I can’t help but want it to be next Sunday. It brightens my day to see the children’s innocence in their voice, drawings, while they’re playing and learning. I have been a youth volunteer every Sunday at church the past eleven years. I love every moment of it.

All of these activities, judo, guitar and church play a part in who I am. The years that have gone by while I was in these activities have taught me so much, about life, about others, and about who I really am. I’m very grateful to have had the experiences I did and I don’t regret one moment of it.