WEEKLY CHALLENGE #10

Double digits in weekly challenges! Let me take this opportunity to recap- I came up with the idea of doing these "Weekly Challenges" a month or two ago as a way to interact more with you, the reader. I figured if you're taking the time to read my posts, you're 1) a pretty interesting person yourself, with good taste in pictures, music, or videos to have stumbled across my blog 2) a fellow blogger 3) one of the other billion teenagers in the world. Whatever the reason, I want YOU to suggest a blog topic for ME to write about! And I'm not just being lazy in thinking of what else to write (I have huge list of unwritten topics at the moment), I honestly want to hear from some of you people out there and the experiences you've had. The "challenge" part is just an additional question I throw out there to make it seem more worthwhile- if you send me a blog topic without an answer I'll still gladly write about it. (If it gets to the point where my blog becomes a universal sensation and everyone is swamping me with responses, THEN I'll use the trivia to sort out the responses I'll use. I think I'm safe for now though).

Anyways, I recently finished all my college applications so I have lots more time. I just came back from the best weekend of my life. I'm getting back into the swing of things and I'm excited to be back and writing.

WEEKLY CHALLENGE #10
I think it's really interesting how colleges across the nations have changed their applications from long essays to much shorter response limits. For me, there's good and bad in both. For long essays, you have to worry a lot about organization, theme, structure, and the sheer volume that you have to proofread. Shorter essays may seem easier at first glance, but quality and creativity become much more important: short, concise, to-the-point statements need to be balanced well with the imagery and anecdotes and literary techniques that can fill up a longer essay. I'm very satisfied with the college app supplements I sent out, but it was during all the reworking and chiseling and remodeling my responses that made me think how much effort and time goes into writing a short piece. The famous quote goes, "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte," or translated, "I would not have made this so long except because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter." (I'm glad six-and-a-half years of French education was not wasted on me, thank you Madame Hession!)

-Who was the original speaker of the quote, "I would not have made this so long except because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter?" (written in a letter to a friend)
-Answer and suggest a blog topic in the comments below, or email me at tomilkyway4@yahoo.com!