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Whole 'nother kind of feedback anxiety...
So I have this little brother. I have two, actually, but the one who causes me worry is the one who's nearest to hand, a college freshman here. He's applying to the School of Music, and he wants me to proofread his (already late) application essays. So I read them.
And now I have to say something, and I don't even know where to begin...
College is a time of discovery and exploration. Take that as you may, the intended inference is that of the future-oriented, career-planning
forethought of upper-level education. Although I have, for most of my teen
years, had a fairly strong intimation of the few select areas in which I may
both thrive and be happy in a career, the first year here at the University of
Michigan has driven me to discover my one true calling: theatre.
Honey: rewrite it so it's not *lame*, that would be a good start. Coherent would also be a plus. And only use words that you are familiar with the meaning of. And. Sigh. Little brothers: can't shoot 'em. Also can't really bear the thought of saying 'you have a typo in paragraph three but otherwise it looks great' and just... letting him turn that in. I mean, he really wants to do this School of Music thing. I'm bound by filial affection to stop him shooting himself in the foot with an irretrievably stupid essay. Rewriting the whole thing for him wouldn't solve the problem, though. And he's eighteen, and there's a certain full-of-oneself floweriness that I seem to remember going through late in high school, so. Maybe I should just let him get on with that. Maybe the School of Music won't mind.
The second essay... sigh, again. The instructions read:
Write a two-page, single-spaced narrative for which the [above] poem serves as a
creative catalyst, featuring yourself as the "main character".
Quite aside from the instruction-writer's need to put the phrase "main character" in quotes (like, what, this is some way-out usage that they're trying to distance themselves from?)... little brother doesn't seem to have understood 'yourself' in quite the normal sense. Said narrative is written in the first person, but, unless watching The Pianist has had a much greater psychological impact than I was aware of, he doesn't actually believe himself to be a Jew fleeing Nazis in Berlin. Sigh, again. Not to mention his story basically turning the poem into a story, to the point of mentioning all the same objects and yet totally managing to miss much of the point of the poem, and.
I love him, I do. Of my four brothers, he's the one I feel closest to in a certain specific sense. My older brothers, though no more distant in age than my younger brothers, have always seemed, y'know, older. And youngest brother is still a baby. And by that I mean he's sixteen, and no, I don't want to hear how very much sixteen-year-old boys are not babies, doesn't apply in this case.
But, Jebus. I don't know what to say.
And now I have to say something, and I don't even know where to begin...
College is a time of discovery and exploration. Take that as you may, the intended inference is that of the future-oriented, career-planning
forethought of upper-level education. Although I have, for most of my teen
years, had a fairly strong intimation of the few select areas in which I may
both thrive and be happy in a career, the first year here at the University of
Michigan has driven me to discover my one true calling: theatre.
Honey: rewrite it so it's not *lame*, that would be a good start. Coherent would also be a plus. And only use words that you are familiar with the meaning of. And. Sigh. Little brothers: can't shoot 'em. Also can't really bear the thought of saying 'you have a typo in paragraph three but otherwise it looks great' and just... letting him turn that in. I mean, he really wants to do this School of Music thing. I'm bound by filial affection to stop him shooting himself in the foot with an irretrievably stupid essay. Rewriting the whole thing for him wouldn't solve the problem, though. And he's eighteen, and there's a certain full-of-oneself floweriness that I seem to remember going through late in high school, so. Maybe I should just let him get on with that. Maybe the School of Music won't mind.
The second essay... sigh, again. The instructions read:
Write a two-page, single-spaced narrative for which the [above] poem serves as a
creative catalyst, featuring yourself as the "main character".
Quite aside from the instruction-writer's need to put the phrase "main character" in quotes (like, what, this is some way-out usage that they're trying to distance themselves from?)... little brother doesn't seem to have understood 'yourself' in quite the normal sense. Said narrative is written in the first person, but, unless watching The Pianist has had a much greater psychological impact than I was aware of, he doesn't actually believe himself to be a Jew fleeing Nazis in Berlin. Sigh, again. Not to mention his story basically turning the poem into a story, to the point of mentioning all the same objects and yet totally managing to miss much of the point of the poem, and.
I love him, I do. Of my four brothers, he's the one I feel closest to in a certain specific sense. My older brothers, though no more distant in age than my younger brothers, have always seemed, y'know, older. And youngest brother is still a baby. And by that I mean he's sixteen, and no, I don't want to hear how very much sixteen-year-old boys are not babies, doesn't apply in this case.
But, Jebus. I don't know what to say.