personal statement: Please critique and give any feedback
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 11:10 pm
The breeze that day carried the scent of salt; an aroma that one comes to love when living by the Ocean. It filled me with warm memories of pleasant trips up and down the California coastline as a child. As I stood on the soft emerald green grassy knoll, I thought if there was any landscape in California that deserved to be on a postcard, it was this one. Nestled somewhere between the congestion of Los Angeles and the hills of San Francisco lay Santa Barbara, the location for this year’s Western Collegiate Model United Nations. As I exhaled, I thought to myself “This is utterly breath taking.” I figured the warm weather was a sign of things to come. “This will be an interesting conference”, I said aloud while adjusting my tie and donning my coat. The Model United Nations was here at last.
This year would be different than the last. There was always a sense of new beginnings at these conferences. Sometimes you would see a few old faces but what made the conferences exciting were seeing the new faces that walked the halls. Some faces were remarkably calm, others were stern in memorization, but the one thing they all had in common was a fearful apprehension of the events to come.
I couldn’t help but laugh a little. I remembered how my first conference had fared. As the World Health Organization delegate for China, I failed to broker an agreement on increased funding against the rising threat of HIV infections. Maybe it was due to nerves. I had convinced myself later that the threat of HIV infections isn’t really a problem China faces, at least compared to other nations.
As I walked further through the conference I realized my days as a delegate were over. I had learned how to research country positions, how to negotiate and foster compromises, how to diplomatically progress on issues with opposing countries, and even how to sit still and be polite though wanting to scream aloud. This year I was preparing for a new role as a defense lawyer in our mock representation of the International Criminal Court, or ICC for short. I tried to tell myself to relax; that “this would be exactly like last year” but my relaxed demeanor was a façade. I couldn’t rid myself of the creeping apprehension that sank to the bottom of my stomach as I tried to understand my role in what was the world’s first International Criminal court mock trial for a national MUN conference.
Greetings were done. The first two days would be research while the third would be the mock trial of Joseph Kony. “Joseph Kony?” I asked myself. This guy had thirty three counts of combined crimes against humanity and war crimes levied against him and my duty was to defend him against these charges. It was looking like an uphill battle. “Is there anymore coffee?” I asked while researching principles of International law relating to human rights, and searching through legal writings such as the Geneva Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Rome Statute. At this point, I was running purely on caffeine. My partner had tried to convinced me that nothing else could be done but some people can’t take no for an answer. I am one of those people. I stayed up all night, two nights straight, looking for legal precedence that could be used as a defense but this proved difficult and elusive. As I prepared the best case I could to find my defendant acquitted, I entered the courtroom. Needless to say, Joseph Kony was found guilty on all charges.
No one likes losing and some abhor it. I am the latter but the Director of my committee Lisa Runyen, now a practicing Attorney, reminded me that the whole point isn’t about winning or losing but rather about representing my client’s interest wholeheartedly and to the best of my abilities. It was a hard lesson learned but lessons such as these have fueled my desire to attend law school and to be a voice for those who are assumed to be innocent until proven guilty.
As I finish my undergraduate degree, I now stand on the precipice of law school and I look out at a scene more beautiful than that of the Santa Barbara coastline. I find myself on a hill looking outward but instead of being on a grassy knoll, I now find myself on the stage of Graduation breathing in the aroma of success. The Ocean that once lay in the distance is now a sea of the future; a sea of my fellow graduates, and as I peer out into this future I do so with the knowledge that I bring with me the hard lessons learned and the skills needed to succeed in law school.
This year would be different than the last. There was always a sense of new beginnings at these conferences. Sometimes you would see a few old faces but what made the conferences exciting were seeing the new faces that walked the halls. Some faces were remarkably calm, others were stern in memorization, but the one thing they all had in common was a fearful apprehension of the events to come.
I couldn’t help but laugh a little. I remembered how my first conference had fared. As the World Health Organization delegate for China, I failed to broker an agreement on increased funding against the rising threat of HIV infections. Maybe it was due to nerves. I had convinced myself later that the threat of HIV infections isn’t really a problem China faces, at least compared to other nations.
As I walked further through the conference I realized my days as a delegate were over. I had learned how to research country positions, how to negotiate and foster compromises, how to diplomatically progress on issues with opposing countries, and even how to sit still and be polite though wanting to scream aloud. This year I was preparing for a new role as a defense lawyer in our mock representation of the International Criminal Court, or ICC for short. I tried to tell myself to relax; that “this would be exactly like last year” but my relaxed demeanor was a façade. I couldn’t rid myself of the creeping apprehension that sank to the bottom of my stomach as I tried to understand my role in what was the world’s first International Criminal court mock trial for a national MUN conference.
Greetings were done. The first two days would be research while the third would be the mock trial of Joseph Kony. “Joseph Kony?” I asked myself. This guy had thirty three counts of combined crimes against humanity and war crimes levied against him and my duty was to defend him against these charges. It was looking like an uphill battle. “Is there anymore coffee?” I asked while researching principles of International law relating to human rights, and searching through legal writings such as the Geneva Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Rome Statute. At this point, I was running purely on caffeine. My partner had tried to convinced me that nothing else could be done but some people can’t take no for an answer. I am one of those people. I stayed up all night, two nights straight, looking for legal precedence that could be used as a defense but this proved difficult and elusive. As I prepared the best case I could to find my defendant acquitted, I entered the courtroom. Needless to say, Joseph Kony was found guilty on all charges.
No one likes losing and some abhor it. I am the latter but the Director of my committee Lisa Runyen, now a practicing Attorney, reminded me that the whole point isn’t about winning or losing but rather about representing my client’s interest wholeheartedly and to the best of my abilities. It was a hard lesson learned but lessons such as these have fueled my desire to attend law school and to be a voice for those who are assumed to be innocent until proven guilty.
As I finish my undergraduate degree, I now stand on the precipice of law school and I look out at a scene more beautiful than that of the Santa Barbara coastline. I find myself on a hill looking outward but instead of being on a grassy knoll, I now find myself on the stage of Graduation breathing in the aroma of success. The Ocean that once lay in the distance is now a sea of the future; a sea of my fellow graduates, and as I peer out into this future I do so with the knowledge that I bring with me the hard lessons learned and the skills needed to succeed in law school.