Second Scholarship Essay

[dance 0]

This question was open ended. [See other post for my other essay]

I cant do it! cries three-year-old Jessica Lu, moments before I kneel down and gently reassured her. After she accomplishes her latest stunt, a mini cartwheel, joy encompasses my mind while a huge smile beams across her innocent face and her older sister cheers zealously.

This hidden gem, in the form of a red brick community center where I had spent 14 years of my life growing, learning and giving, had become my second family with classmates as sisters, Miss Barbara as my second mom and the children as my younger siblings. My supportive classmates and I, who share a passion for dancing, helping others and participating in this irreplaceable community, were about to embark on a journey to choreography and teach all of the ballets and taps in the recital to all levels.

Okay, so since were coming from a triple time step, how about if we invert a shim sham (tap step) and then waterfall (way of performing step) into a TTBB (tap step)? Like this, I asked with a sudden outbreak of dance that nearly knocked over my well-worn water bottle during one of our frequent 9-hour long choreography sessions. Since we maintain a high standard of creativity, we often find ourselves spending hours creating our own steps, rearranging formations and, as the year progressed, readjusting our untaught choreography to accommodate for shifting levels as students transfer classes. By sacrificing many summer hours, weekends and holidays, we learned unwavering determination and collaborative teamwork.

On your mark, get set, go! My students white ballet slippers leap across the creamy floor tiles with a tourjete and jete combination as they raced to the hastily assembled finish line in order to choose the acrobatic warm-up song. Laughter and friendly competition filled the room with humane warmth despite a broken heater in the midst of winter. This was just one of the numerous techniques we use to help our students, not only learn new steps, but to foster a love of dance. Teaching the entire class efficiently required leadership, respect and responsibility, skills that began to mature and transform me into a capable leader. By the end of the recital, though I was far from perfect, I had developed into effervescent and respected leader with an eccentric mind, innovative methods and compassionate heart that is always full of hugs and listening ears.

As the year progresses, our endless list of tasks grows to include creating a program, cutting music and organizing all details of the recital, dress rehearsal and picture day. Later on, to ease communication between busy families and ourselves, I created a dance e-mail and website. My 20 hours a week commitment quickly increased to 30 hours during the busiest time of junior year which, consequently, helped me to better my time management skills.

When the bright lights hit the stage, all of our apprehension washed away and I was filled with the image a childs glowing eyes, the warmth in a loved ones contagious smile and the invigorating energy of watching the fruits of your dedication. Minor mishaps, like when the electricity was temporarily turned off to the entire building, could not have been prevented and only added to the uniqueness of our show. As I proudly watched my students zealously doing their best, I realized that since we used our best efforts to live up to our shows name, The Wonderful World of Dance, our hard work ensured that the world wouldnt end if a period was missing from the program or the music had been cut a second too late. Our perseverance and perfectionist mindset showed us that success is not measured by preventing Murphys Law that says, Everything that can go wrong will go wrong, but by the fulfillment you extend into yourself and others. As long as you ardently put forth your heart and best effort, your dedication will effulgent and the show, similar to life, will go on to succeed.


What do you think? Any feedback is more than welcome!

[proskiier23 0]

not bad, but as a fyi i dont really think they focus on these dumb essayes neways

[ASHISHRANJAN 0]

hi...... how ru i think no it s not easy to get second time scholer ship because it very hard as usel like previous year because the job is not same for the both year , and mainly for two coseccutive year