Doesn’t it seem a bit over segmented with the comma after “minutes”? There are already 5 commas in the sentence. I’ll substitute “burning freezing” for something else when I think of it, but I’d like to keep it as “(adjective) spiral of the Milky Way”.
You could rewrite the sentence to have not so many commas. Like, “One useful technique that I’ve picked up for emulating this indomitability is to, when faced with a problem, really think about it for a solid five minutes before writing it off as too difficult.” But as you wrote it adding that comma was the smallest change to make it look non-wrong to me.
“One useful technique that I’ve picked up for emulating this indomitability is to, when faced with a problem, really think about it for a solid five minutes before writing it off as too difficult.”
I’ll use the quoted text. I think it flows much better.
What do you think of “starry,” “astral,” or “sidereal” in place of “burning freezing”?
“Starry” is okay, if not particularly interesting. “Astral” just makes me think of astral projection and I would have to look up “sidereal”… *looks*… that’s okay, if you don’t mind making your admissions person head for the dictionary.
But he didn’t just help guide me towards my future; he gave me hope. Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres taught me to look up at the heavens, the stars blazing against the dark and the mountains on the surface of the Moon, and see not only the cold indifference of the universe but also the promise of humanity’s future. That one day we might expand beyond the Earth and the Solar System, into the huge, luminous spiral of the Milky Way. That disease and early death aren’t immutable facts of life. That we don’t have to accept them; that we can challenge them and win. He taught me that the future can be as big and as brilliant as the night sky, but only if we fight for it. And that’s exactly what I’ll do.
Without more elaboration than you can put into the space of an admissions essay, I think that positing a world literally free of disease, or early deaths even as statistical aberrations, is liable to come off as naive. On the other hand, my attempts to come up with a viable substitute mostly suffer from sounding too vague, so maybe it’s worth taking a gamble on a sympathetic reader, since it at least offers an opportunity to stand out. I think the take I’d use for the bolded text might be something like
That notions of “the human condition” as an immutable thing are an easy excuse; that we can challenge the big problems, like aging, disease, perhaps even death.
I’ll add that to my list of considerations, but with the first line as follows:
“That the sad things about being human may not be immutable”
I’m going to try out the different lines on some friends (who are all “normal”), family members, and if I can gather up the courage, teachers, to see what they think about it.
Doesn’t it seem a bit over segmented with the comma after “minutes”? There are already 5 commas in the sentence. I’ll substitute “burning freezing” for something else when I think of it, but I’d like to keep it as “(adjective) spiral of the Milky Way”.
Thanks.
You could rewrite the sentence to have not so many commas. Like, “One useful technique that I’ve picked up for emulating this indomitability is to, when faced with a problem, really think about it for a solid five minutes before writing it off as too difficult.” But as you wrote it adding that comma was the smallest change to make it look non-wrong to me.
I’ll use the quoted text. I think it flows much better.
What do you think of “starry,” “astral,” or “sidereal” in place of “burning freezing”?
“Starry” is okay, if not particularly interesting. “Astral” just makes me think of astral projection and I would have to look up “sidereal”… *looks*… that’s okay, if you don’t mind making your admissions person head for the dictionary.
I like it but I’ll have to make sure that the stars in the Milky Way actually are “sidereal” first.
ETA: They are.
“Stellar” and “Luminous” could work maybe. Do you have any suggestions? (not meant to be antagonistic at all)
You could just omit the adjective. That’s usually safe.
I think that I would be slightly annoyed when I had to look up a word if the person definitely knew that using the word would make me look it up.
I already knew what it meant, and I would still be annoyed because it says to me “I was stretching for any adjective to put here.”
Do you think it seems any better now?
Yes. I agree with Normal_Anomaly though that the inferential distance is probably great enough for mentioning defeating death to not be a good idea.
What about this?
Without more elaboration than you can put into the space of an admissions essay, I think that positing a world literally free of disease, or early deaths even as statistical aberrations, is liable to come off as naive. On the other hand, my attempts to come up with a viable substitute mostly suffer from sounding too vague, so maybe it’s worth taking a gamble on a sympathetic reader, since it at least offers an opportunity to stand out. I think the take I’d use for the bolded text might be something like
I’ll add that to my list of considerations, but with the first line as follows:
I’m going to try out the different lines on some friends (who are all “normal”), family members, and if I can gather up the courage, teachers, to see what they think about it.
I changed it.