In every facet of math that I’ve explored over the years, I’ve found a level of satisfaction and excitement that other subjects couldn’t replicate. Pushing my limits on what I could comprehend gave me a feeling of clarity and control, as I manipulated equations and found variables that meant could mean nothing or anything. Math was both a skill and one of my more unknown passions that I scarcely tried to explain the appeal of. Maybe the two were more entwined than I realized, because who doesn’t find joy in mastering what comes naturally? Math was like a secret language, one that resisted simple explanations but spoke directly to me in ways words didn't. As a junior in AP Calculus, I often think back to why math had originally drawn me in and still continues to captivate me. It was such as abstract concept that describing it how it view it- elegant- sounded strange. But math truly is elegant, and demands a level of creative thinking that continually surprises me. Math both develops and reflects everything from the tides of the ocean of the lift of an airplane to a perfectly cooked meal. Even as some of my classmates asked, “When will we ever use this in real life?” it was clear to many others, myself included, that math was already synonymous with life, guiding the forces and reactions that define our present reality. Every possible math question is beautiful to me as it represents the world’s most diminutive yet profound mysteries- the answers of which make up all the details and small moving parts of our world. The countless unsolved equations and the yet-to-be-known formulas we will use to solve them prove that opportunity is present and never-ending. How honored I am to engage with something that reflects our world so accurately and so beautifully.

Me and Mona had missed the Caramel Apple Spice drink over the summer so much that we tried to make it ourselves, at home. It was very early June but warm, a full 180 degrees from our beautiful fall, when we would walk from her house down a few blocks and around the corner to buy them ourselves and sit at the same table in the corner of the Starbucks, sharing secrets over our favorite drink. We were as close to last fall as we were to this fall, but in the month of June became impatient and orbiting each other in her kitchen, constantly colliding, cupboards slamming, pouring ingredients into a glass, trying to recreate our favorite fall tradition. Our love for the underappreciated Caramel Apple Spice had become an inside joke. We giggled over some dumb joke as we sipped our concoction from Mason jars, still in swimsuits, our hair tangled and wet, sunscreen pilling, the patches of skin we missed rosy from the sun. It’s the smallest details I remembered. But now it was the fall that we had waited so long for. I was at the Starbucks around the corner, my Caramel Apple Spice sitting in front of me next to my opened laptop. A blank document that with no amount of effort could I turn into a perfect scholarship essay. I closed my laptop and gazed out where people reveled on the greying beach- although the trendy tiered skirts and stretchy tank tops of the summer were replaced with baggy jeans and crewnecks, a silent agreement among us. There was no such thing as being too early for fall, Mona would argue in that very corner of the Starbucks, sipping the first fall drink of the season, fingernails painted violet. Of course, all things come to an end. When Mona slipped away silently, I was sad, but I moved on as swiftly as the summer did to make way for fall, although sometimes I wondered how she was doing and if she still loved our signature drink. It had for so long represented a loss, something that I didn’t dare to bring back. Not only did this change as I tried the drink again months later, I also finally had an idea of what to write my scholarship essay about. I could finally tell the story of what a normal and delicious fall drink meant to me. A tepid rain began to drum on the oak leaves, the beach glowed in the late autumn light, in the wake of the long summer. I opened my laptop and began to type. When I sipped my Caramel Apple Spice, it tasted just like ambition.