Common App Essay 1

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

I could talk about piano. I could talk about my Asian heritage. I could talk about what it's like to be a straight girl in highschool, although I'd be able to say two sentences, maybe. I could talk about music in general, or idk, go.

But let's talk about the community I'm invested the most in, the community I've found the longest friends, made the best friendships, and discovered myself the most. Let's talk about the gaming community. (as it pertains to me.)

My earliest memories of elementary school are faded and scattered. I remember walking through the hallways silently, as a teacher informed a line of 5th graders how badly they were misbehaving compared to the stoic line of 5-yearolds passing by. I remember running around by myself in the soccer field... chasing butterflies. I remember chasing boys around the playground as a gaggle of girls... God I wish I could erase that memory. How embarrassing. But I don't remember any of these people. Well, I still know one, but he was a family friend. We play league of legends together sometimes now, and went to Animazement earlier this year. (Austin)

I remember finding some words in the bathroom when I was in first grade and telling my parents about them. I attended a different school for 2nd grade.

At this school, I remember exactly two people. I remembered these people until I saw them again years later, their names, what they looked like, whatever, stuff. We used to talk about pokemon together during recess. We looked at cards and stuff. I'm still friends with Vinit, and Ayush... I recognized... We don't talk a lot though.

Alright my memory sucks but I remember.

What am I talking about?

for some reason im very tired now

oh geez I'm thinking too much about the common application

ok i just came back from doing laundry

whew

calm down

casual writing

whewwwwwwwwwwwww

let's just talk about league of legends screw it. that stuff up there is trash. factual, but factual trash.

OH NO FROGGEN NOOOOOOO

GO ELEMENTS TAKE REVENGE ON THE SLAYER OF THE MIGHTY FROGGEN, MASTER OF THE BIRD WORD AND OF THE ARROWS OF VARUS

yeah im watching a game right now lol SK vs EL i'll write who wins once it's over

hmmmmm i don't know what to do. It's like I can't quite bring myself to admit I live in the real world. I'm perfectly okay talking to myself or to other people who live in the same world as me.. the one where we've made up and established the rules.

i'm still very tired

I slept at 4am last night and I was so incredibly awake. Started a movie at 11, finished at 1, played league until 4, watched like 5 minutes of LCS before falling asleep, woke up at 7 and snoozed until 9.

T_T tireeeddddddddddd

maybe i should take a nap

NO I MUST WRITE THIS ESSAY

COMMON APP YOU SHALL NOT DEFEAT ME TODAY

I WILL DISCOVER THE RULES IN THIS UNRULY GAME OF MAO

lemme write an essay

Okay I need structure.

errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
wut do

I suppose ...

This is mainly about me. Let's see how gaming has infiltrated my entire life in all of its aspects:

Intelligence - very smart people play games. Maybe we could find some statistics about this and make ourselves sound smart lol

i almost fell asleep again

i want to watch an anime any suggestions guys no ok maybe i should watch that schoollife anime where the pregnant girl is cut open by the jealous girl because the jealous girl realized the pregnant girl was lying about being pregnant and was actually not, which was verified when she was cut open. then the jealous girl walks off into the sunset holding the head of the guy that everyone wanted to date

or something

they were like freshmen in high school...

nah.

maybe i should try black butler again...

nah...

Character - I have learned so much about people and so much about myself by playing games...

asleep

again

geeeeeeez what do I do?

Decision making - games require snap decisions and team play

Research - gameplay requires prior knowledge of opponents and their skills and even skill-level

idk im bsing stuff again

i try not to bs stuff actually... maybe that's bad

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

tired 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XBJeisnS9M <- a link for fun

My LCS teams are Counter Logic Gaming and Elements. Their names are awesome. (y)

LCS - League Champion Series

I really hope future me doesn't forget what the LCS is. I guess she might. Hey, you, I'm talking about you. Do you remember DoubleLift? Do you remember Aphro? The best botlane of the best botlanes (of NA lol) DoubleLift with his amazing life story? How crap a kid he was, and how he was basically adopted by the League of Legends championship series people and how league is literally his life, all he has, and all he knows how to do? How double lift is the name of a magic trick that I tried to copy and failed horribly at? (Kevin Gao idk how you do it. magic is magical) Or Aphromoo, the amazing support who started as a YouTuber ... or a streamer (im always on youtube so i wouldn't know the difference). Aphro with the personality, the plays, the confidence.

Geez i need to get a life. Is this any different than obsessing with standard celebrities though? Like, I don't know anything about any famous singer's life. It's like, a trade-off. I'm wasting about the same amount of brain power, pretty sure, so who cares?

I need to shut off the heating in this room.. i think it's broken it smells like burning. Or a really old cotton pillow. That's very dusty and musty. (i keep ctrl-s-ing idk if that does anything for the post i think it autosaves)

(back)

so those two people are basically the foundation of team CLG.

Team EL is formed around the midlaner, Froggen. EL used to be Alliance. Froggen used to be on Evil Geniuses, which used to be CLG EU. Just a coincidence, really. But Froggen is amazing. Used to have a well-accepted reputation as the best mid-laner in Europe. Elements isn't the no. 1 team rn, but Froggen is still doing great. (watching a game in the background rn and Froggen has 5 out of the 5 team kills)

 whew maybe i should sleep early.

I brought a fridge to my dorm room, finally, so I got a jar of smooth peanut butter (idk if crunchy or smooth is better but i think smooth is safer o.o) and some bread, and im gonna have a sandwich for breakfast tomorrow. :)

gonna be a nice change. I usually make an omelet (cheese and sausage) with the microwave, but microwaved eggs don't taste that great, and I got sick of them. I had ramen one morning... Nachos last friday.

yeah this is gonna be a nice change for sure. 

rambling

maybe i should stop typing the title first.

Now I'm going to try to make this post very rambly, and that never turns out well. I'm fairly tired right now. The night before last night, I laid in bed, awake, until something ridiculous like 6:00am. I swear. No you don't notice when you fall asleep but you do notice when you wake up and I did not wake up before the awful loud storm at 5:30. I was caught in half sleep, where there are hallucinations and dream things around you and you have no control over them to make them go away, but you are awake and can tell where you are and that you are not asleep.

So not a lot of sleep yesterday night.

or is that one yesterday yesterday night. Yeah.

Yesterday night was also not great. i mean, at least i could fall asleep. but it wasn't great. i slept at 2am. And all these days i have to get up at 7am. yayy

i mean it was my fault. im in my series for s3 (ik, trash lol) Played two games last night, lost the first one and it was 12:15 and kevin was like y not and i was like no and then i was like w/e so we played.

haha im so coherent

no im too tired to hit more than one key at a time im sorry
also apostrophe thats too hard

yeah but anyway that 2nd game lasted until 1:17ish
and the internet at ncssm cuts off at 1:00ish

vinit finished the game for me yay
he played for 5 minutes (y)
it was good, i bet
idk
i wasn't there

yep but we won the 2nd so i'm L W _ and i need another W

i would type Xs and checks, but i don't remember how to type a checkmark...

it's so cold... i think i'm sick. Okay i'm sick but i'm not telling people because i'll probably get better by myself because that's how it works right

also Dad's coming over with the fridge today so that's great
I no longer have to bother melissa every morning

also almond milk is disgusting
i should've just stuck to soy milk
or normal milk

i miss normal milk

that would've been a good last line to post on but i want to keep rambling

college... what college do i want to go to?

Okay so i'm stupid so I base a lot of my opinions on general broad ideas and 'names'. like, how good does this name sound

like, jade tiger vs farty bison i'd probably apply to jade tiger because of the name

names i think sound cool: carnegie mellon, uchicago, MIT, berkeley, duke

good schools: just look at the spreadsheet i have a list of 20 of them

ugh college

i mean, it's not that i don't want to go to college, but i guess i'm worried that i might not live up to expectations

my own expectations

i suppose i'll try my best

essay tho

but

okay i really don't know

w/e

i'm almost silver three (y)

Here we go again

When characters wake up in a story from BedTime, the world takes a little while to form in around them.

She held her eyes closed and breathed. The first thing she could feel was the weight of her eyelids and her tongue in her mouth, fat and dry. She coughed, and felt her hands, scratched up, a burn on her right wrist that still bothered her. 

Then she opened her eyes, and everything flooded in at once. She was a human this time, in front of a door. The air-conditioning was turned up high, and chill ran down her back. A white flash of light came in from behind her.

Julia pushed through the door and ran. An atrium. A towering geometric stair climbed upwards and downwards, and sunlight streamed in from all angles. She bolted towards a window, shoving white-coats aside, and leapt. The image of the outside world shattered as she burst through, and as the glass shrieked and the girl fell, she screamed.

Muse

Hello and good morning. It is 7:44 a.m., so I can say that. Not like all the other times, when I'm just saying it because I have a limited repertoire of what to say so I have to repeat often.

You know, when I was younger it felt like I could say anything. I wouldn't hold back. I never got to keep these giant secrets that would rip apart friendships, ya know? But now they're everywhere... This probably isn't applicable to everyone. But it's just that now I feel like I can't put everything here. I can't write with confidence in case something is used against me. lol im just being paranoid

Uhhhhhh i don't know what to write about. Maybe that's when you stop writing haha. Or maybe that is precisely when you continue. Just keep talking, and see what comes out, and this is your true thought process and what you really are made of, behind your surroundings, beyond your immediate influences.

If so I'm not a very interesting person.

The bus leaves at 8:00 and it's 7:50. And no I did not spend 6 minutes to write this, although you probably didn't ask. For future me. Even though I've moved a long way from last year, when I would literally live on YouTube, I still watch a lot. Just less.

Time burners nowadays? Well, YouTube still. Idk, Duke takes up 8:00 to 4:00pm. Piano I stuff into all the excess time. And 10:30pm to 1:00am I reserve for something relaxing, like League. Recently I've been watching OitNB. Orange is the New Black.

See, the time slot is because we have a hall check at 10:30pm, after which we have to stay on hall, so might as well glue ourselves to our computers, ey? And then internet cutoff at 1:00am of course.

alright bye

Internet Cutoff

The internet at the North Carolina School of Science and Math cuts off at 1:00am during the weekdays. Or, Sunday through Thursday nights. So I only have 10 minutes for this one.

Labs are the best inspiration for superheroes, I swear. I'm working with a group that does stuff with x-rays. They shoot x-rays through an object and measure the scattering of the beam and can use that to determine what materials the object is made of. That's a helluva superpower isn't it? Holy crap!

And if you happen to be studying the physics of objects falling into sand, why not be an earthbender? Okay fine I guess that has to be an sandbender. A small-particles-bender? Eh. (If I had to choose out of fire, water, earth, or air, I would be an earthbender. Very practical. And I'd never have to walk again. =D) (Matt)

And. If you're profiling lasers and making sure they're epic and accurate and stuff, why not be some genius who spent their childhood in a basement who becomes their city's superhero who fights with lasers (but not tentacles :( ) that can fire from miles away to pinpoint feathers that drop from... city birds. (Laasya)

AND IF YOU WORK WITH FRICKIN MANTIS SHRIMP YOU CAN BE MANTIS SHRIMP MAN YES. THAT WOULD BE AMAZING. OMG. (Arjun) OHHHH you could have epic rainbow armor and a giant flexible shield tail cape thing and you could wear epic metal gloves and they punch at the speed of a bullet and YOU CAN SEE COLORS. MICROSCOPIC THINGS. CANCER. RADIATION. OMG SHRIMP ARE SO COOL. Although if it's like antman that's not worth. I don't wanna be any smaller than I already am.

I need to know other people's lab stuff. You know, for networking purposes. And to get to know more people. And stuff. Yeah.

kk not risking cutoff imma go bye

bye no-one :(

lol

College Common Application and Interviews:Describe Yourself

So I had an interview with Measurement Incorporated. Dad works there right now and they have a summer program for their employee's' kids. I sent in my application like a month ago, they called while I was practicing piano and I had an interview three days later.

No prep. I didn't bother. I had already gotten into the lab at this point so I was just going for experience.

Oh geez it was so bad. I stumbled over my words and was awkward saying hi and even shaking her hand and I'm sure I looked nervous as hell. All of the questions were so basic but I felt stupid answering them. I didn't even answer some of them. I just. Mumbled. And stuff. She asked if I could describe myself in one word and I said no. God it was awful.

I'm bringing this up because

well because this is where I'm supposed to write stuff

but also because college interviews. I'm worried. I don't know how to talk about myself.

So I'm going to practice. Right here. I'll get random interview questions or college essay questions and practice.

for fun... kinda

I did get the job though. Not really impressive... dunno if they actually reject anyone. I could've helped in their IT branch or been  a helper at the Durham museum.

Eh. I get to work with x-rays. ^_^
Except not really because regulations and stuff. But I get to work with the team that does, and they're pretty cool. I'll probably write about them later.

So anyway, let's have the first question:

T_T

Describe yourself:

My name's Sicheng Zeng. I'm an American citizen but I was a citizen of China for most of my life, and despite this I have horrible Chinese. All of my foreign languages skills are pretty poor, haha... But that's okay. I want to go into mathematics or computer science, and computer is an easier language...

Can I try again?

Okay.

My name's Sicheng Zeng. I

what do I talk about?

What could I talk about?

Who I am? My background? What I'm into? What if they ask me again about the same things later? Can I talk about informal things? Should I say anything negative? Should I have something memorized or is that too obvious?

What a struggle.

My name is Sicheng Zeng. I had a teacher last two years ago who told me to stop using contractions. Of course, if I just start at the beginning of this paragraph, that anecdote doesn't make sense and seems random.

My name is Sicheng Zeng. I love mathematics and teach a class on the mathematics covered on the Scholastic Aptitude Test at my town's Chinese Saturday School, Cary Chinese School. I'm taking a lot of courses in that field, and a lot of them were interesting and challenging and I swear I'm not bsing. I enjoyed learning about number theory a lot, and combinatorics too, although that wasn't as challenging. I'm hopefully holding a seminar with two friends in the fall on some interesting tidbits of mathematics and how they were discovered, in chronological order. I'm also the president of the Go Club at my school, and Go is this game that's like chess, but older and more complicated and better. We just get together every two weeks and play together. I also play piano, have for almost 14 years now, which is crazy sounding to me. I do competitions, but I also play casually at school Koffeehauses and ballet performances and I've been invited to play at a convocation, with the school orchestra, and at recitals at Duke and the Durham School of Music. In my spare time I like playing computer games or hanging out and talking. I used to read and write a lot too, but now my studies take up too much time.

Can I memorize that? Geez.

Lab nvm tentacles

I'm working in a lab. I have an office. The key to the office is next to my school dormitory key and my access pass on the key ring.

Wow I can't believe that. I can't even imagine myself saying that last year.

I also need

oh oops i forgot what i was typing there haha. I think it was about league of legends. I wonder how long it's been since I played solo queue. Actually forever. No not actually forever... But an incredibly long time.

It's been so long since I wrote anything, a whole season of League of Legends has passed! It is season 5, things are exciting, I am now silver 4 because I haven't climbed and I placed here, and I'm a Vel'koz main question mark? Tentacles and lasers man I don't known why I didn't play him as soon as he came out. I knew he fit my playstyle, and he really does, incredibly well. Should've instabought him. He's all kiting and intense amounts of damage and long range and poke and burst and I am amazed at his wave clear. Max w first, clear the waves ignoring your opponent and they like, take poke just from being around the wave because the rift is so fat it's amazing.

Last night at 2 I played a game as Vel'koz versus a gold yasuo. Hell that lane was annoying. The windwall can block Vel'koz's w, and the shield blocked so much of my poke. This wall of projectile blocking wind can block a rift opening up in the ground. Game logic! But, I solo killed him first before he solo killed me next =D woo

it was a good game.

This post isn't about the lab at all... I should change the name. 

kk done

I'm not sure if I should make long posts, or if I should just do multiple posts in one day if I have to. Like when I change topics.

You didn't need to know that.

anyway

I'm falling asleep

i said for the 14th time in two days.

I wonder if people get a notification if I upload any post. I'm sorry if it does. I'm too tired to actually write something worth reading. hmmm

rawrrr i just fell asleep okay imma go