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number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin, I offer you Cindy's Columbia
University admissions essay, which I found among her papers. I have titled this essay
"Jar Lids" as you will soon discover why. Yes Cindy, I remember Sally's boxes and
boxes of jar lids. I was also fascinated by her collection of jar lids, not because of their
mathematical combinations, but by the sheer number of them in her collection! My
gifted baby sis, you still inspire me everyday, to learn, explore and investigate this
crazy world in which we live. I'm sure after reading this, people wont look at jar lids
quite the same. They'll pause and think of you. That is all we can do for now. Think
and remember your clever ways. I am smiling right now. Thanks sis. Now lets read
how it all began, with "Jar Lids" and lots of smarts for such a little girl.
Cindy Deuel
Admissions Essay
June 15, 2000
A few people are lucky in life in that they discover their true calling at an early age. I
am one of those people. Although I've drifted away from it, I have always longed to
return to the place that made me most happy in my childhood. While some may
discover their calling while praying at an altar or intervening in a traumatic situation,
my epiphany occurred rather uneventfully while playing underneath my pseudo-aunt,
Sally's kitchen table.
Sally looked like Yoda, balding with strange moles and growths all over her face and
neck, a little plump and hairy. Her appearance wasn't the only commonality she
shared with the Star Wars sage; she also seemed to possess some of his wisdom.
She was knowledgeable on a variety of topics. She had a great love of nature and
science, but also paradoxically was extremely religious. Given all of this, Sally was my
favorite of my mother's friends. We went to visit her quite often and I was always glad
to go - perhaps a little too glad. I drove her crazy, always trying to be part of the
conversation and demanding attention in obnoxious ways. She tried to remedy this
situation by many means. Then one day, by chance, her salvation came.
When we arrived at Sally's that day she was preserving fruit. She had all the
necessary equipment strewn about the kitchen. Sally and my mother began chatting.
After some time, they noticed how quiet I'd been all day. They peeked under the table
to see what I was doing and were quite surprised at what had kept me occupied. I was
sitting under the table surrounded by hundreds of jar lids.
From that day forward, every time we went to Sally's they set me down at the table with
the bags of jar lids and left me alone. Occasionally their curiosity would get the best
of them and they'd ask what I was doing and I'd reply, "making pictures of things".
That was the best answer I could conjure given the language skills I had at the time.
However, what I was really doing was the math.
With those jar lids I was able to understand addition, subtraction, division and negative
and prime numbers, before I even knew how to count. I would spend hours trying to
make patterns out of the different types of lids. I would line them up or stack them in
columns or pyramids. What I was trying to do, but never had enough time in a single
visit, was to fit all of the jar lids into some kind of pattern.
Eventually, I started kindergarten and soon forgot about my lids. In school, I
immediately excelled at math, (while stumbling at the more basic tasks, like tying my
shoes). It took me some time to connect symbols and words they were teaching me
with the concepts that I already understood. Once I did though, a whole world opened
up for me.
At some point in my early school career I, along with four other students, were
selected for a somewhat experimental, talented and gifted program. The class was
wonderful. We made videos, did logic problems and studied the animals in the woods
near our school, among other things. We did have to attend regular class part of the
time and even occasionally make presentations to them. During this time my love of
math continued. I wouldn't say that I loved school in general, mostly because I was
very poor and most of the kids were quite wealthy. However, despite these difficulties I
learned a lot and enjoyed myself a great deal.
At age twelve, we moved to Pennsylvania and my relationship with education was
permanently altered. When my father and I went to register me for school, we were
told that I would be put into "average" classes. Their reason was that they didn't know
how to compare my prior schooling with their curriculum. Thus began my nightmare.
In order to understand this new school system, it is necessary to understand the
community in which it exists. It's a place of dying industry, where for a few centuries
generations of families have labored in the mills and mentally they are still attached to
that way of life. It's a place where even though the incidence of cancer is unusually
high, the townships still refuse to vote environmental restrictions on the factories for
fear of layoffs. There, fun for teenagers is driving around the town in circles waiting
for something interesting to happen.
This place that so adamantly resists change and forsakes logic in favor of "their way
of doing things" was a very bad place for me to attend school. Having previously been
spoiled by my parents and my school with so much freedom of thought, I rebelled
against this restrictive and backward environment explosively.
For the next five years I remained in a constant battle with my school. Their
"curriculum", which they feared may be too advanced for me, was like kindergarten for
chimpanzees. Relative to my prior experience, days in those classes were like days in
prison and like any frustrated prisoner I tried to escape.
My escapes were frequent and I often encouraged other prisoners to free themselves
as well. The result of this being a number of threatened expulsions and numerous
days subjected to in-school and out-of-school suspension. What they didn't realize
however, was that I enjoyed their punishments much more than attending class.
Out-of-school suspension just meant ultimate freedom and in-school suspension just
gave me an opportunity to study and learn. I'd spend my days of punishment reading,
writing and playing with math.
In addition to the punishment they also promoted counseling. There were a number of
well-meaning guidance counselors who tried to "get through" to my friends and me.
They asked many questions: were we having problems at home, were we using drugs
and so on. It amazes me that they never thought to ask what it was that we did when
we skipped school. Perhaps if they had, they would have understood what it was that
we needed.
The days that we didn't go to school we learned multitudes more than the days we did.
We traveled to New York City and Philadelphia. We went to museums and plays. We
would have contests involving logic problems or word games. We spent days doing
historical research on the original settlers of our region. In general, we had a passion
for learning that our school could not feed.
Midway through my senior year, I was told that I would not graduate. Even with my
excessive absenteeism I had managed to pass my classes, with the exception of gym
which I had failed every year. I had already been accepted to college, so I contacted
them as to what I could do. They told me I could still attend in the fall as long as I
withdrew from school and passed my GED. I took their advice and did just that.
The next ten years I lived in many areas of the country and had both negative (The
University of Tampa) and positive (New York University) experiences with education. I
worked in a variety of industries (securities, mortgages, music, movies, etc.).
Recently, I began two small businesses of which both are successful, but something
was still missing. I had a hole in my heart that could only be filled with one thing - jar
lids.
I love math and not only do I love it, but also I need it. I am never as happy or
peaceful, as I am when someone gives me a difficult problem to mull over. While I am
playing with math, I don't notice time passing, my problems dissolve away from me and
in some ways I even forget that I exist. It is true that I don't need an education to study
math. I could go through life doing what I do now - spending endless hours looking for
patterns in the primes and trying to elicit unique relationships among numbers, but this
is a somewhat lonely existence. When you love something, you want to share it and
that is why I took a position at Columbia and now why I am applying to school. I am not
going to school to increase my income-producing potential or so I can climb the
corporate ladder. I want to go to school at Columbia so that I can learn and share in
an environment truly dedicated to learning.