When I reflect, consulting my heart as well as my brain, I illuminate a virtue that has carried a consistent value to me through all my years in the world I come from; my capability to be my own silly person holds substantial importance to me.
I have grown up in a household where two of my role models who raised me, my mother and older sister, both suffer from chronic depression. With my controlled ridiculousness, whether it’s conveyed by pulling my arms into my t-shirt sleeves and making t-rex noises, giving my best impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Get to the chopper!”, or just delivering an unexpected “anti-joke,” my loved ones’ resulting smiles and laughs revitalize me. While balancing school with my activities and obligations to cook, clean, and do the laundry at home, the consequences of my dorky attempts at humor matter to me. It not only allows me to detach from the internal stresses in my life, but it also alleviates some of the tension in my home, substituting dark truths for utilitarian absurdity.
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Simply remaining true to myself and my behaviors has given me confidence to resist any temptation to strive for a version of myself that I am not. My silliness matters to me because through my actions to support others, I manage to learn more about who I am, who I want to be, and what I can contribute, no matter the situation. Upon embracing my cultural difference, I only grow more excited about Macalester’s spirited community, knowing I can rest assured that its student and faculty body will respect my background and invite rather than exclude my personal