Essay #3

I have honey blond hair, sapphire eyes, strawberry cream skin, and I grew up in Utah Valley. My freshman year I went to the Tribe of Many Feathers club expecting free fry bread. Instead, I was invited to join the Native American Hoop club. That night I curled up against the whitewashed wall next to my bed and watched the moon cross the sky through my broken blinds. It was the first time I had been a minority; buckets of emotions poured into my soul. In those twilight hours the dawning of a new chapter of my life rose as I realized that the world is filled with people who I wanted to love but who I knew nothing about. I promised myself that I was going to go back to the dance class and I was going to learn how to speak love in every language.
Today, I dance with group called Remembering Our Culture. We practice multicultural dances hours a week to prepare on the Navajo Reservation, a week tour in California, and at the end of the semester a two week tour through Texas. It is similar to BYU’s Living Legends group, but includes African American and Asian dances. Also, the dancers are not categorized racially and I can perform in the routines even though I am of complete European heritage. Our goal is to encourage students to embrace their unique heritage and to embed a desire for secondary education in high school students. Now, I am accustom to being the only blond and as I learn to dance for cultures other than my own I realize how little I know. More importantly after each practice I come closer to the understanding that love and laughter are universal languages.

Essay #2

Originally, I wanted to drop out of BYU, go to Chicago, and become a famous designer… at the time that idea did not sound quite that stupid. I grew up on farm, and was adjusting to living in an apartment with more people living in one complex than who lived in my entire neighborhood back home. She was from the Navajo Nation, a place that I had never heard of, and yet I felt drawn to it, all because she said it had irrigation ditches. Before we visited her family for the first time she teased me, bring your visa because this place is not like the rest of the United States. I laughed, but nothing could have prepared me for the life changing experience the visit would have.
The second night of my visit I wrapped myself in the cotton blankets and watched the shadows move across the floor as my reality crumbled. There were people who did not have the same opportunities that I did: education, running water, housing, and even family. I guess I had always known that, but it was “stuff” for national geographic articles and not for the pages of my own life. On the drive home I began to rewrite my life goals.
Currently, I am applying for Early Childhood Education major at BYU and I know that the classes at BYU will prepare me to reach my life goals. While taking notes in class I have begun to understand that I need to teach students that they are lovable, and that they can and should love. I don’t just want to learn how to stand in front of a classroom and talk; I want to learn how to help children kindle a fire for learning and I know that my BYU education can teach me how do that.

Essay #1

I like to walk barefoot, and feel the mud in between my toes. My favorite feeling is running through a barely field with my arms stretched out and my fingers twirling through the heavy heads of grain as the sun changes my pale checks to powder pink. I grew up on a diary farm, were the clicking of train wheels and blasting whistles kept time.
My summers were filled with snapping pliers clipping through barbwire fence, and the harvest was filled with the sloshing of water jugs as they bounced in the back of the truck while we drove across plowed fields. Winter meant the plop of muck boots, and the zip of overall coats. Then, life was not composed of time but rhythm; The rhythm of tire swing chains creak-clank-creak-clank, skipping rocks across the pond plump-plump-bop, and rolling bike tires woo. Sometimes I think that my heart beat is still timed by the beats of rolling gravel and rusted gates that filled my childhood.
Quickly, time became apart of my life as I danced across stages in tights and laced ribbons. My father’s praising words carried me and my mother’s whispered, “I love you,” lifted me above my expectations, but nothing compared to the chime of new words and thoughts as I learned to read. Someone could scrunch their noses and say that I walk to my own beat, but if only they could hear the music of life.