Acceptance to Graduation

I wrote a thesis and today I'm graduating! And in honor of that, I wanted to post the essay I'd originally written while applying to New College. Enjoy!

Blue is the New Black

In terms of pens, I was a privileged child. I had a fountain pen, a German, wood-based, insertable ink cartridge, rubber-gripped, little wonder. After those first five minutes of breaking in a new cartridge, the ink flowed from those pens like no other.

But it wasn’t only my pen that made me "the privileged child." I had the luck to have parents who cared about my education and who were open to the unorthodox. The Waldorf school I went to had one class per grade and one teacher who moved up with his or her group. A German method similar to Montessori, the curriculum emphasized the imagination. Does it come as any surprise that our entire class used fountain pens? They were our only pens. And there was only blue ink.

And so I grew up on blue ink. I learned to think, to reflect, and to create with blue. But as all children do, I began to rebel against my parents and also my upbringing once I hit middle school. So I rebelled and for three years I wrote exclusively with black ink, I got more serious about my subjects, and I focused more on math equations and essays than how to throw a javelin or knit in a round.

I went to a public school for the first time in ninth grade. It was there that I began to realize the worth of my earlier experience. Not that I was a bad student at any point, but learning creativity and innovation, and then skill sets to efficiently deal with the world makes me different than others. The further I go, the more I recognize what is most important.

Last summer, for instance, our entire family went on a road trip. And when I say road trip, I mean a 7180-mile long journey, to be exact. People thought we were crazy! Six people in an old Honda Odyssey, including our Danish former exchange student Ida for good measure, staying in KOA cabins and couch surfing with strangers we now call our friends. We drove from Gainesville, Florida, to Phoenix, our old home. After a whirlwind week of visiting old friends, we drove to Vegas to pick Ida up at the airport, and eventually to North Carolina to visit family. We dropped Ida off at the Atlanta airport and drove ourselves home to Gainesville, but the journey truly was more important than the destination. Not many people do road trips anymore. Maybe we were crazy. But we got to spend time as a family and visit fascinating places along the way. My growth through the experiences of those 31 days was equal to, if not greater, than what I’ve gained in any one of my recent years at school.

I want to learn, but not be schooled. That is my motivation. If I can forge a path to also help others along, the better for it. Although I will always need to know how to write an essay, I "learned" many things I know I will never use. So I started writing in blue again. I broke out my old fountain pens, unused for 6 years, and I write to reflect. Because no matter how much this world tries to school me, I will always find my way to stand out rather than be stood on. I will be the blue ink against the standard black.