Scholarship Essays

So, i applied for two scholarships today: one involved a personal statement of goals and why you deserve the money and the other was about the Green movement and recycling. Here they are respectively:

Gen and Kelly Tanabe Scholarship Essay:

Medicine is the art of humanity.

I have chosen to attend graduate school for Oriental Medicine. I have no desires to be rich or famous; I neither wish to live a luxurious life nor live a life without work. I have always found it important to give back to my community, even when I have a busy schedule and have little time for myself. To study medicine and to make it affordable to the public is one of the greatest ways that one can give back to one’s community. By studying the art and science of Oriental Medicine, with a rigorous background in Biomaterial Engineering, I hope to apply my intellectual ability to switch between Oriental and Western medical paradigms towards the integration of these great systems of medicine. I see, with a rapidly growing world population, that the medicine of the future cannot afford to merely apply bandaids and simply hope that the patient will stop complaining. The medicine of the future must be robust, it must focus on prevention, and no disease, syndrome, or condition must lie outside its scope. It is my mission, my duty, and my destiny to help bring this medicine into the world. As such, I need as much scholarship money as I can get so I can stop taking out loans; this will allow me to amass savings that will in the future be invested in my practice of medicine and thus in the community that is the world around us.


Castle Ink Green Scholarship:

I designed a videogame controller that could be made from post-consumer, recycled polypropylene and high-density polyethylene along with SBS. Only the SBS, making up a mere 3.2% of the controller’s mass, would need to be purchased as newly synthesized. I have yet to get a patent.

I clean and recycle everything that can be recycled; I also take all of my old computer and electronic parts to proper recycling locations, as well as batteries and empty printer cartridges. We are not the only beings that inhabit this planet; environmental consciousness must be at the top of humanity’s list of priorities.

11 Creations That Prove "Mario Bros" Was The Most Important Video Game Ever (PHOTOS)

Sooooo sweeeet.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Poetic Justice

Today i fought through my last engineering exam ever in the story of my life. I needed to get at least a 50% to pass the class... i'm pretty confident that i'll pass, and in 4 day's time i'll be walking the good walk for good.

then... out of the time of my life where i do what i have to do, and i start doing what i want to do... excellentness. victory is mine!

Jinsei Shinkendo!

My latest test for progression in rank (last night) went extremely well; i looked and felt amazing. apparently everyone was blown away by my consistent level of force, never shying away, never showing a hint of tiredness nor weakness...

I tested simultaneously for 3 separate ranks:

Goho = 6th of 7 student ranks

Shidoin = 2nd degree in instructorship

Gokkyu = 3rd degree in Japanese Military swordsmanship

Only 3 weeks left at Iwanami Dojo then off to Chicago where i'll continue my studies at Sojokan Dojo under the direction of the great sensei Trevis Crane.

word up y'all, nothin' can stop me now...

djd

¡Víva la España!

Buenos días.

It is currently 7:27 local time in Málaga, Spain. My good friend and i flew into Málaga Saturday morning and since then we have been having the time of our lives. Our fist day we spent 3-4 hours on the beach of the Mediterranian, closing our experience with a couple of nice cold beers. Saturday night, we bought a couple bottles of white wine for €1,69 a piece, took ´em down like champs, and went out on the town at 1:30 AM. We landed ourselves at a bumpin´club called ¨The Sound,¨ and danced for 3 hours before they kicked everyone out at 4:30. We had met a couple of Slavakian girls and a tall, strapping Spanish gentleman, who we followed to a rather swanky club where we got in free of cover, only because we were with José. We stayed at the club until 5:30 in the morning, which was not closing until 7:00 AM... that´s right, 7AM. Soooo, we slept until 4PM yesterday; we visited Pablo Picasso´s birthplace, and then spent most of the day climbing to the top of the great fort ¨Alcazaba.¨



View from Alcazaba




View of Alcazaba from the ground

After a healthy day of hiking, we ate at the historic Café in La Pláza de Constitución. Today, we are checking out and coming back to the States.

This trip has been exceptional, and if ever presented with the opportunity to come to Spain again, i would do it in a heartbeat.

Hasta luego,

djd

Painful Bliss

Mmmmm... tonight was a beautiful depiction of the dynamic ebbing-flowing balance of Yin and Yang:

We were training Shinkendo in 90 degree heat, the shalacked wood floor possessed a strong frictional resistance to rotating movement upon its surface. We blazed through uchi komi ichi, tsuki komi ichi, combined them and created uchi stuki kihon at first as ice, which around the time we had completed uchi komi ni and tsuki komi joge we were one and like water; swinging every cut as a deathly blow to the skull of the parter, there was a trust: a trust that runs deeper than most forms of logical, or emotional trust; a trust between warriors, a respect for the honest attempt to slay and the promise of effective defense, even if it did not go according to plan. and at the same time, i destroyed a large part of my right pinky toe via blister from fucking hell

Turning Apprenticeship

So i was recently asked to become a wand making apprentice. Two days ago i began my apprenticeship with turning a pen on a lathe. Once i get comfortable making pens, we will begin turning wands.

Here is the very first thing i've ever made on a lathe:





The pen is made of Bolivian Rosewood and takes Cross Refills.

This is secretly my father's birthday present; he has a refined taste for well-crafted tools and loves pens; he's gonna totally flip his lid!

Look forward to more pens and eventually wands ;-)