Short side thought:

For my Harvard application essay, they didn't give an actual prompt, so I asked my mom (the Harvard grad) what I should write about, and she suggested the evacuation from bootcamp due to the fire this summer. Btw, if you want to reread that lovely ordeal, you can find it here. Her advice to me was that my essay should be emotional, evocative, and compelling. I've got it all banged out and I'm going to edit the fuck out of it, along with my Stanford essays, tomorrow.

That's not the point!
The point is that I have much more vivid memories of that 36 hours than I thought I did. There are little smells and sounds that I keep reliving. It's very unnerving and it's making me realize how fucking traumatic the whole experience was. In the moment, I sort of shut my brain down and went into leader-mode. I was keeping my cadets calm and functional, and nothing else mattered but their safety and my accountability. Looking back, I was kind of a bad ass, barking orders with a bleeding pharynx because the air was so fucked up by the smoke and all.

Sigh. I still can't process that day.



Julia