LOR SLIGAR
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008

SO I'VE BEEN struggling epically with my college essays.

I thought that I had one, maybe two, all wrapped up and perfected.

But then I let my parents read them, and they trashed them. Shortly after, I acquired a book of really good college essays to see what I was doing wrong.

Wow. They were like, good. Really good. Like, really really really good.

In comparison to my pretty dry, sort of forced-sounding paragraphs, these were basically really meaningful short stories.

So I was left feeling very inadequate. I mean, my essays were shoddy at best when compared to these under-500-word works of art.

Rereading them, still in awe of the magnitude of these students' greatness, I realized something.

They all have problems and trials and interesting, meaningful things that have happened to them. Their mother's hands are wrinkly, they like to chop wood, whatever.

So they metaphor away, pulling in childhood memories of holding their father's hand or relating a hard hill on their 27th triathalon to a significant trial in their lives.

Ahhh! Where am I supposed to find things like that? As far as I know, I'm pretty normal. And if I'm not normal then I must be really bad at finding symbolism and metaphors for my life.

Seriously, is this how people think? Am I missing something? Where are all these little details crying out for college essays?

Maybe it's like it is in "Harry Potter," and there are invisible Wrackspurts that float in your ears, making your brain go fuzzy. I think I might have one.

I wish there was an alternative, like sending in an old history paper or graded math homework. Those are the things I'm really proud of.

But sit down and grind away at an anecdote from my life until all that's left is the dust of the memory and a bunch of pithy metaphors … not so much.

So basically I'm feeling very put-out by these essays. They're not going to ever come close to representing me, and if they really wanted to get to know us they should have us send in something that we're proud of. I have a few things published here on the Online Gargoyle that I really like, for example.

But sadly, they don't answer any of the essay prompts. In the meantime, does anyone know how to remove a Wrackspurt?

An earlier version of this column was published as an entry in the OG Staff Blog.