This was the first Regents' Exam Practice essay I had to write but I figured I'd post it here because it can sort of give you an idea of who I am, or at least some aspects of my personality that are more obvious.
All my life, I have been greatly interested in photography, videography, and travelling, which are all closely associated with friends, family members and memories. I rarely leave the house without my camera, and I am glad; Always having my camera by my side has enabled me to successfully capture memories and portray the personalities of the people whom I hold dear to my heart. Video-editing is a great passion of mine, and after years of patiently and diligently cutting and dragging a million different movie clips onto a time line on Windows Movie Maker above various carefully selected songs, I have found that my current compilation of completed music videos is almost endless. Travelling and learning more about different countries is another great interest of mine, resulting from living in Sweden for six years. Living abroad truly opened up my mind and enabled me to look at the world from a broader perspective, and now I have the ability to successfully communicate with and reach out to a much more vast population than earlier in my life. If my house suddenly caught on fire, the three belongings I would not hesitate to save are my camera, external computer hard drive, and two passports; without them I would, in my opinion, lose almost all connection to my past, future, and the outside world.
I do not know anyone who takes as many pictures as me; No matter where I go, my camera is either in my pocket, or purse. That way, if I stumble upon an old friend, watch a rare historical event unfold, or just simply feel photogenic, my camera is always within my reach. After I take pictures, I generally edit the colors on Photoshop in order to make the pictures appear slightly more vivid, and then I upload them in an online photo album. That way, the colorful photos are always viewable, whenever or wherever I am, like memories that never fade away. Memories have shaped who I am; At times they govern my emotions, choices and my ability to dream and hope for an ever improving future, while I at the same time wish I could go back and relive my childhood once more. It is easy to say that, without my camera, I would not be who I am today. I would not feel the same strong bond with my friends and the rest of the world as I currently do, and at times, my life would feel rather uninteresting and dull rather than colorful and full of retentive memories.
In relation to making life more colorful, and finding things that govern my emotions and actions considerably, movies and music greatly inspire me. Whenever I have time on my hands, I tend to sit down and brainstorm different ideas for new music videos. Such creations require a lot of time, patience and effort, but when I finish a project, I feel very productive and proud. In addition to feeling like I accomplished something exceptional, I become more and more creative every time, which allows my next music video project to be far more complex. An increased will to be a creative individual allows me to excel in numerous aspects of my life, including activities I like to do on my free time such as writing stories, creating art or music from scratch on the computer, and more important skills such as getting to know new people, getting a good job, and writing essays or short stories for school. An even more rewarding result from being more creative is that I have been able to reach out to more people, and I have maybe even brought a smile to their lips through my videos. If it was not for my external computer hard drive, on which I store all of my movies, music, video-editing software and finished projects, this would be an impossible task to achieve.
The last belongings I would rescue if my house was burning down are my two passports, which I am blessed to have in my possession. One of the passports is an American one, given that I am an American citizen; however, I am also a Swedish citizen, and therefore, I have a Swedish passport as well. Without them, it would be extremely difficult to travel back and forth between the two countries as I please, and I would have no opportunity to move back to Sweden later on in my life. With my Swedish passport, I am also able to travel to numerous countries in Europe for extensive periods of time without trouble, which is something I have not taken advantage of yet. Living abroad for six years proved to me that being very connected to the outside world is important, and it enabled me to understand and enjoy other cultures and languages in a way that I never would have thought possible. That is a very important skill now that different ethnicities and cultures are spread out in a way so that the world has become a gigantic melting pot. If everyone had a more profound understanding of the world's people, cultures and religions, then foolish quarrels and disagreements would be more easily avoided, and the world would possibly be more peaceful.
Thanks to my three most cherished belongings, I am able to fully enjoy life and be the best person that I can be. I have learned so many valuable lessons, become more creative, more understanding, more appreciative and more knowledgeable about a wide variety of subjects, and I am ultimately able to be somewhat of an inspiration to my close friends and family members. I am able to talk to people from across the world about anything partaining to their lives, while making them smile and appreciate life themselves. Life is truly awe-inspiring, and all we have to do is stop, take a look around, and observe the world around us, in order to feel like we are part of something truly remarkable. With my camera, external computer hard drive, and two passports, I have successfully reached that state of euphoria, and I will not let any fire take that away from me.
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