经常听到家长问我关于孩子课外活动的事情，因为家长们现在都知道到美国读大学，大学招生官很“看重”申请者的课外活动。

但是你看到我把看重这两个打上引号，就知道我的大概态度是什么了。

我非常遗憾地告诉你们，除去一些国际大奖或是奥林匹克之类的，你做的活动的重要性，远远不如你在文书里如何体现这些活动的重要性。

对于绝大部分美本申请者，他们的活动不是太少，而是太多了。

只是他们不知道如何体现！

特别是到了高二了，好好准备你的标化成绩，这些是无法进行包装的，而活动之类的软性内容，都可以进行艺术性处理。

哪怕你的活动，只是一个中国学生几乎人人都有的画画！

这个学生，我在和她进行文书创意的时候发现，她的活动少的可怜。

最后，我决定就写她还算比较能坚持的画画。

我决定把她父母的严格要求造成的性格压抑，和画画带给自己的内心狂狷构成鲜明的对比，并依此为主线。

因为她的画画并没有得过什么奖项，所以文章也侧重于画画对自己性格和人生的影响。又因为画画的女孩质地敏感，所以，文字上也稍微多愁善感一点。

最后，她以SAT 1900分左右的成绩，进入美国排名30多点的凯斯西储大学。

Just imagine the life of a girl whose father is an architect and whose mother is an accountant.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am the girl who has been growing up in such a family.

Father would tell me not to make any notes or scratches or folds on books. He said books are worth cherishing as they are the crystal of civilization. For my homework, he couldn’t bear any corrections. And he would give zero tolerance for my making the same mistakes in my study.

Mother was a perfect match for him, but mainly focused my daily routines, making a long list of “dos and don’ts” for me to follow. I was scolded for bad table manners, for sleeping late or for interrupting an adult talk. I was required to come home by no later than 10 o’clock, and as for sleepover, it never showed up in my dictionary. 

Growing up in such a suffocating air, my heart seemed to be ready for bursting out anytime. But it was miraculous that I finally found release in painting. It opened a door for me to the outside world, which I found was very exciting.

I went to an art studio and unexpectedly, I spent 10 years in that room tinged with colors and smells. My art teacher taught me how to focus on small details in life and make them vivid in painting. I was gradually beginning to observe those small but moving details in life, and alas, I found there was so much worth presenting, just through brushes.

Sitting or standing before the canvases, I seemed to be omnipotent with just a brush on hand. In the same time, I seemed to be fragile, shedding tears for a fractured cricket on canvas or a herd of innocent animals walking in a large patch of grass. So many afternoons were whiled away in this leisurely hobby, with smell of pigments, canyons and sometimes, due to teacher’s courtesy, coffee and fruits.

Painting changed me. I was not that girl who just followed parents’ rules and thus became reserved and resigned. In painting, I found a different world from what I thought was. Painting for me is not only a way of recording beauty, but a way of expressing those yearnings deep inside my heart. In a serious sense, it shaped and fostered my dream, a dream about sky, for a bird in cage.

But still, I owed many thanks to my parents’ strict rules for me to follow, which cultivated me into a person with integrity, rigor, courage and generosity. Those qualities make my real world life more fulfilling. I was thus becoming strict with my study, my life and with everything I do.

Meanwhile, painting fostered my observation and artistic talents, enriching my spiritual world. For me, painting is expressing; it is about our pursuit of a noble life, about freedom, and about our ultimate goal. On the sketch books or canvases, I recorded those rambling thoughts or moving scenes, a city shattered by heavy storm, a village showered with sunshine, a sleepless autumn night with falling leaves bidding farewell to the trees, or a heart-rending moment with nowhere to retreat.

And painting doesn’t shut me up from the big world outside world, I do my painting in a small studio. 

Every time I finished a painting, I somehow felt one inch closer to the world lying just before me. 

And one inch closer, to the sky. 

（最后几段的中文翻译，供部分英文不灵光的家长们参考）

与此同时，画画培养了我的观察力和艺术天分，给我的精神世界提供了丰富的滋养。对我来说，画画就是一种表达，它关于对高尚生活、自由和我们终极目标的追求。

在画布或是素描本上，我记录想那些零碎的想法和动人的场景，比如风雨飘摇中的城市，阳光普照的村庄，落木无边的秋夜，以及生命中那些无处可藏的揪心欲碎的时刻。

虽然我只是在一个小小的画室里画画，但画画并没有让我和外面的大大的世界隔绝。

因为，每当我完成一幅作品，我就感觉我和我面前的世界，触手可及。

我也和天空，触手可及。