what do you think about this as a college admissions essay?

[Charlie Neibel]

College Admittance Essay #2 (concerning a trip to Boston and my insecurity)

"When I travel I tend to wallow in self-consciousness, as if someone's taking a picture of me, but constantly and from all angles. I want badly to fade into the crowd of people around me, to look native, local. I hate being a tourist and I try, at all costs, to avoid appearing as one. But I have a feeling that the way I hold myself when I'm overcome with the feeling of being a stranger, an outsider, gives me away. I walk with my shoulders swaying too heavily, the map in my back pocket too bulging, and my eyes too frantic and lost. I fake confidence and the sense of being at home so unconvincingly that I most likely produce the opposite effect of my intentions. In the end, I become more of a constantly disoriented, frustrated madman than I do a tourist, if that can be called a success.

I recently visited Boston, MA and convinced myself, again, of my own buoyancy and coolness in an entirely unfamiliar place. I thought I'd be able to, unaided, navigate the T (Boston subway system), scalp a bleacher ticket for under $60 (in one of the most celebrated ballparks in the United States), and eventually find my way back to our hotel, all without ever visiting Fenway Park in my life. I asked one hotel lobby-man and he shrugged it off as if it were child’s play, scoffing at my inexperience and filthy innocence. Another gave me a look and growl soaking in so much hatred and disgust that I realized and revitalized the purpose of my temporarily displaced façade. I eventually decided that it'd be best to drag my mother along, to assist in, and perhaps share, whatever failure and embarrassment I was cursed to endure.

In short, a task like this, even three hours before the first pitch, is utterly and unremarkably hopeless. How anyone can pay $175 for standing room tickets is far, far beyond me. Together, my mother and I retreated, marinated in humiliation like two wharf lobsters in butter. But Fenway was something.

Then, after checking out of our tourist trap hotel surrounded by sausage stands and clothing vendors, I noticed the difference between my mother and me: how adult she is and how childish I am. I am truly yet to mature. Being an adult is something that has become increasingly more noticeable as a quality which I lack. I am entirely uncomfortable in my skin. When in new places, instead of embracing the fresh, singular nature of where I am, I try to hide in the backstreets and alleyways as if I have become immune to the beauty that surrounds me. My mother lets herself go and swallows up everything that is new around her. I hope that during the next four years of my life, I can find a sense of security and ease that will allow me to consume the world from which I am hiding. My collegiate goal is to simply grow up and act more like my mother."