What is your favorite word and why?

My favorite word? Receipt. Of course, highly descriptive adjectives such as “incandescent,” “melancholic,” and “axiomatic” carry more ‘wow’ factor. But besides the obvious reasons, such as the way its silent ‘p’ dances, hidden, on a speaker’s lips, “receipt” reflects certain crucial aspects of my character.

(Warning: the deed which I am about to confess may horrify some readers.) I planned my college application process on the back of a tiny, slightly creased Chinese restaurant receipt. Admittedly, this action seems quite unorganized and arbitrary, but more importantly, it mimics my inventive, carefree personality. In the past, I have tried to substitute a weekly planner and desktop calendar for my little receipt, but both alternatives failed to cooperate with my disposition. After covering the desk calendar with doodles and the weekly planner with pictures of friends, I decided to throw away both products with the half-hearted intention to try them again another day.

That fateful Chinese restaurant receipt did not include in its list of purchases my fortune cookie, the inscribed adage of which reminded me that “a closed mind is like a closed book; just like a block of wood.” Even after my eternally ravenous Labrador took the liberty of swallowing the little piece of paper, I remembered its beautifully simple message. In life, I like to keep my mind as open as an open book, for it is only in this state that I may truly evolve as an individual, using the powers of optimism to skip off blissfully in the direction of my dreams.