Now i'm just under the word limit! Thank you Michael!

I didn’t want to become an actress. In fact, I’ve spent the past five years talking myself out of it. But, despite myself, here I am, applying to Julliard because I can’t keep myself out of a theatre. This all seems odd though, because for most of my life my primary goal was to become an Egyptologist. Egypt had been my passion since before I could read, and I worked my ass off in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at my high school in hopes of getting into the university with the best Egyptology department in the country. An IB student’s life is intense, waking up most days around three in the morning in order to finish my homework. But I didn’t hate the time commitment—I loved it! If I could have had my way, I’d have studied every moment of the day, but that would have easily driven me insane. Instead, I found something to do that I enjoyed and that kept me from studying constantly—Theatre.

Theatre was like taking the analytical ideas from my literature classes to the next level; you needed to know the symbols, archetypes, themes, and so on, but then you had to make them apparent and truly meaningful to an audience. On stage I found a way to release something inside of myself that I had never before encountered. Through my art, I felt a connection to the persons in the audience: I was able to use my intellect in a way that could be shared directly with them.

But I was the smart kid who was going to pursue a life in academia. How could I ignore my intellectual potential? How could I turn down an opportunity to attend one of the most rigorous academic programs for undergraduates in the entire country?! I couldn’t. I went to the University of Chicago where I excelled in my classes. Yet, by the beginning of second year, I found myself spending all my time in play rehearsals and none of my time doing my Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphics homework.

It was then that I finally realized how much I love acting, and, more importantly, how much I love connecting to people through performance. That’s what makes doing theatre genuinely worthwhile. I remember my priest quoting Mother Teresa once, saying that, “In the West there is loneliness, which I call the leprosy of the West. In many ways it is worse than our poor in Calcutta.” Being an Egyptologist wouldn’t help anyone but myself, but as an actress I could counteract this sort of sickness; theatre helps remind audience members that they are connected to each other, and to the actors, through their shared experiences. This is what I want my art to accomplish. I want to touch people, change people, and interact with people honestly. So here I am, soon to graduate from the U of C, ready to do something that’s important, something that I love.

Word Count: 490!!