oh, writing

I've always loved writing and enjoyed what I found just now.

I was looking through my documents on my family's computer and I found this - my college admissions essay. Part of the law school application is a personal statement, so Lord willing I will be crafting my personal statement, 2009 edition, this winter.
I'm not sure if I added more to gear it towards Furman. Anyhoo, here it is...

Allison Renfro
Personal Statement

Tucked away under my bed are nineteen diaries. Filled to the brim with preteen anxieties, romantic prospects, and ideas for fictional stories, each book traces my continuously evolving thought process.
Ever since I was little, I have loved to write. Swept away by an inventive imagination, my literary prowess - exemplified in stories such as my fantasy horse club and a 5th grade version of a Titanic romance - had elevated me as an acclaimed author among my elementary school peers.
I wasn’t fully enthralled by my talent until I won second place in the Brentwood Women’s Club Poetry contest. Then, the egotism sank in. Heaven forbid my mom critique my work - I, the award-winning author.
My freshman literature teacher surpassed my second place ribbon with a more noted accomplishment - a college degree; providing the red ink I so desperately needed, she disabused me of my hubris. A writing style that was once grammatically incorrect and structurally unsound was rigorously tweaked, stretched, and pruned under her watchful eye. Her most important lectures were not on Othello and the Odyssey. Vastly more valuable were the lessons on humility, receiving my first (and only) 69 on an essay, and discipline, having to fight and struggle to maintain a B-average first semester, and then actually going the distance to earn an A in the semester that followed. The A, like anything else worth working for, did not come without a price. Only after several months of grueling practice and a plethora of one-on-one help-sessions was I capable of producing high caliber work.
I always thought my raw talent in itself was enough, but undeveloped potential alone never makes the grade. Learning the construction of a good paper did not kill my creativity as I had feared, but actually enhanced it. It was only within the constraints set by the higher authority that I could most fully express myself. In life one needs to have an exuberance and freedom of spirits, but that energy will only be positive if channeled effectively.