Is your college essay due this weekend, or next week, and you've been procrastinating epically? Here's how to beat the procrastination paralysis and crank out a college essay by deadline. Note & Plug! The photo featured above shows gung-ho participants in a customized Essay Intensive college essay writing workshop, Just Write, at The TEAK Fellowship. They beat procrastination, just like you will, and punched out some quality personal essays! So, speaking of-- back to you. The moment is Now It's beyond crunch-time. You're panicking that you don't have time (because you screwed yourself) to be all that you need to be in your college admissions essay: insightful, creative, authentic, reflective, and thoughtful. (You're wrong-- keep reading). You're seriously considering writing your college essay on your dog's midlife crisis as you watch him limp after spastic squirrels. And ending it with a line about the pointlessness of striving in this world. Think again. Let your dog have his own crisis. Seize your loaded moment for what it's worth, and use our tips to write. Continue Reading …
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Help, I can’t focus on my college essay!
Why Can't I Focus? Heat's on, application season is coming in like a tidal wave, and you can't focus on your essays. In fact, facing your essays is like facing yourself in the mirror with a bad haircut-- you'd rather look in any other direction. Yet it's practically a commandment: To write requires focus. To write something as important as your college essay requires focus on yourself, the most elusive subject of them all. And it can make you feel like you have an irredeemably bad haircut. Crap! What are you to do? The more you try to focus, the less you can, like trying to untangle a thin chain. And the more you tell yourself you just need to read or do one more thing before you get down to business, the less likely it is the writing is going to happen. Why are we wired this way? Can we do anything about it? Continue Reading …
There’s more Inside! Your gutsy college essay…
Gut Feelings What’s more New York than a Deli with a botanical name pushing questionable health foods? Well, courtesy of my local deli comes a lesson in writing an authentic and gutsy college essay. In the GARDEN DELI window, a sign reads, “Fresh food all day.” The rub? The poster advertises the least fresh-looking food conceivable. Who you going to trust? It challenges famously. My words or your own (lying) eyes? Some delights cannot be feigned. Writer, take note. Continue Reading …
College Essay Boot Camp: Don’t Give Your Mind a Cramp!
College Essay Boot Camp is all the rage right now: go ahead, Google it. "Boot camp" prevalence implies that your admissions essay, like world domination, is not going to happen if you don't get all militaristic about it. But get this: Essay Intensive brings you a nouveau college essay boot camp model: with us, you figure out ways to respect and maximize what you've already got going on so intensely that you wind up with a product (an essay!) only love could have made. Make love, they say after all, not war. We buy that trade-off. Because the following is not where you thought you'd turn for essay-writing, is it? Continue Reading …
On Destiny and Saying YES in Your Essay
In Taoist philosophy, it is understood that each of us is born into the world with a curriculum. This curriculum is a set of challenges and themes and things our souls are here to learn. We do this kind of learning simply by moving through our lives. Just being yourself is following this curriculum. It is said that our souls are a piece of the sky scooped out by the big dipper. Continue Reading …
Because I Myself Was Still Eating Sugar
A mother brought her young son to Mahatma Gandhi. Please, Gandhiji, she begged. My son eats so much sugar. I cannot get him to stop. Please, tell my son to stop eating sugar. Gandhi nodded. The truly wise ones usually take a substantial pause before responding to go within for a reality check. Then he said: OK, come back in a month. And that was a solution? Because you have to listen to what you’re told when you ask Gandhi for advice, or so I imagine—it’s not like asking a question on a forum on Yahoo groups—the mother left with her son, a bit baffled. One month later she dragged him back in. There was powdered sugar on the boy’s chin, frosting on the sleeve of his shirt, and chocolate stain near his belly button. Clearly her techniques were ineffective—the boy was wearing his rebuff as a military decoration. She stood the boy in front of Gandhi’s chair. Gandhiji, she said, desperately. I brought my son back, just like you told me to. Please tell him to stop eating so much sugar. Continue Reading …