(no subject)
my college essay, it's tentaitve, but my dad says it is "quite good"
The bullet is as long as two of the joints in my finger. It was spray-painted neon orange, some of the paint has come off in my pocket; still, there are patches of orange left. I’d never seen a real bullet before this one, I don’t know what kind of gun it’s for, and I don’t care, to me it’s not a bullet, more a memento of four days spent in St. Bernard’s Parish in the spring of 2006.
When I picked it up, it was hot from sitting in the Louisiana sun for a day. The fire department had spray painted the boxes of ammunition we had found in the muddy, dark, musty back room of the house we were cleaning; then forgotten about them. Perched atop the sink I had helped to rip out of a wall, the box was surrounded on all sides by piles of rubble taller than me, dragged over the course of four days out of the one story suburban home, located in the middle of a wealthy (and now abandoned) neighborhood. Only months before the same neighborhood had been covered by a thirty foot wave of flood water, coming from the levees only blocks away. Houses lay in ruins, roves had collapsed on themselves, and every area of empty space had been filled with rubble piles. Copperheads swam in slimy, green swimming pools, spray painted exes marked the front of homes, only one house had been rebuilt.
A stolen bullet is a strange thing to write about in an essay, but to me it is more than a bullet. To me it represents strength, something as small and unobtrusive as a bullet can bring down even the strongest man. Something I can fit into my pocket requires a call to the fire department, a bullet has power. But without a gun, a bullet can’t do anything. I can shake it, and throw it, or just keep it in my pocket, but without a gun it’s nothing, and without a bullet a gun isn’t anything either. They need each other to be powerful and the same holds true for me, for everyone. Divided we can do very little, but together, we can be unstoppable. That was the most important lesson I learned in Louisiana, only by coming together, can we be effective on a grand scale. It’s going to take more than a few people to clear all those houses devastated by Katrina, being united is more than acknowledging we are all citizens of the same country, it is coming together to treat others as we would like to be treated. Unity is realizing we are all a little bit like my bullet.
The bullet is as long as two of the joints in my finger. It was spray-painted neon orange, some of the paint has come off in my pocket; still, there are patches of orange left. I’d never seen a real bullet before this one, I don’t know what kind of gun it’s for, and I don’t care, to me it’s not a bullet, more a memento of four days spent in St. Bernard’s Parish in the spring of 2006.
When I picked it up, it was hot from sitting in the Louisiana sun for a day. The fire department had spray painted the boxes of ammunition we had found in the muddy, dark, musty back room of the house we were cleaning; then forgotten about them. Perched atop the sink I had helped to rip out of a wall, the box was surrounded on all sides by piles of rubble taller than me, dragged over the course of four days out of the one story suburban home, located in the middle of a wealthy (and now abandoned) neighborhood. Only months before the same neighborhood had been covered by a thirty foot wave of flood water, coming from the levees only blocks away. Houses lay in ruins, roves had collapsed on themselves, and every area of empty space had been filled with rubble piles. Copperheads swam in slimy, green swimming pools, spray painted exes marked the front of homes, only one house had been rebuilt.
A stolen bullet is a strange thing to write about in an essay, but to me it is more than a bullet. To me it represents strength, something as small and unobtrusive as a bullet can bring down even the strongest man. Something I can fit into my pocket requires a call to the fire department, a bullet has power. But without a gun, a bullet can’t do anything. I can shake it, and throw it, or just keep it in my pocket, but without a gun it’s nothing, and without a bullet a gun isn’t anything either. They need each other to be powerful and the same holds true for me, for everyone. Divided we can do very little, but together, we can be unstoppable. That was the most important lesson I learned in Louisiana, only by coming together, can we be effective on a grand scale. It’s going to take more than a few people to clear all those houses devastated by Katrina, being united is more than acknowledging we are all citizens of the same country, it is coming together to treat others as we would like to be treated. Unity is realizing we are all a little bit like my bullet.