Describe two or three of your current intellectual interests and why they are exciting to you. Why will Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences be the right environment in which to pursue your interests? (Please limit your response to 650 words.)
Whoever thought it was a good idea to plan a field trip to a taxidermist’s shop must be out of their mind. Along with twenty chubby-faced second graders, I stepped into an intimate room filled with still creatures posed for perfection—glassy-eyed foxes, creepy bear heads, a stuffed rabbit. It didn’t help when the teacher whispered, “Remember, these were all real live animals.”
That’s when I realized: some collect coins, some collect trading cards, and some collect animal bodies to preserve, slice, stuff, and display.
Yet, I am equally guilty of indulging in the collecting frenzy. I’ll admit it: I am a collector of stories. I like to say I come from a lineage of storytellers even though my parents do not read or write for leisure. Instead, they raised me on a diet of oral stories like the epic race of 12 animals across the river. I don’t believe in horoscopes or zodiacs but I still feel a strong affinity towards rabbits everywhere—a belief, I suppose, in patronuses.
I wanted to preserve the world through my senses, slice memories open, and stuff it with vibrant details as a journalist, writer, and human being. I aspired to cut life into seams and share what’s really underneath. So, I traded the ten-minute commute to my local high school for two-hour bus rides to an arts school. With my fellow classmates, I summon the spirits of writers like Haruki Murakami and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. They are my teachers even though they do not know it—I tell myself, learn from them. Do not replicate the specimen but somehow craft your own.
“Don’t get a comfortable job working for Google,” Mr. Tim Powers told me once. To the world he is an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author—to us, he is our bizarre, cat-loving teacher. “I’d better walk into a Barnes and Nobles one day, point to your book and say, ‘I taught her!’”
Mr. Powers and I discuss everything from the research he conducted on the Cold War for his book Declare to meeting Johnny Depp on the set of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie based off of his book On Stranger Tides. At Cornell, I know nothing will change--I will have this same relationship with my professors. My teachers are also the literature courses and required readings. They are my classmates who can explain the mechanics of a dragon or the physics of sliding down a snowy slope. Perhaps in return, I can show them the power of storytelling--collecting pieces of life here and there--can be used to reflect and change society, and more importantly, provide hope. There’s so much to learn and so little time--how can one possibly choose between Cornell’s variety of courses? This is one of the best conundrums anyone can have, and selecting courses from wine-tasting to growing mushrooms to exploring museums to dancing.
It is at Risley’s where I plan to mount a series of student-written one-act plays, spending time poring over ink on a page with like-minded artists. Dropping in during office hours with endless questions, exploring New York’s vibrant art scene, encountering strangers at the Farmers’ Market, joining the editorial staff of a literary magazine--learning takes place outside the classroom as well where I can bring change to the world.
In the end, the taxidermist and I share many similarities. We both alter what we collect. We arrange and put them on display in a way that honors our subjects and inches closer to capturing life. And we share our passions by leaving the door wide open. But when visitors stop by and enter my collection of stories, I hope that the exhibits are bursting with life--a glimpse into what I’ve gleamed from Cornell. Imagine that: a red fox darting through a forest, a bear on hind legs swiping his claws, and a rabbit leaping from stone to stone across the river in the Great Race.