Vassar College
Like My Mother
Reflecting on your experience and aspirations, discuss how your life will differ from your parents' lives. Provide concrete evidence to illustrate your position.
Saturdays were the days I followed my mom to work. Her boss would pick us up from our home in Brooklyn to the store that was miles away in Long Island. The hour-long ride felt like a trip across the country; forests and wheat fields greeted us as we ditched the concrete jungle.
Entering the store when it first opened at 9 in the morning, I was faced with a spectrum of colored bottles on a wall and the mixed scent of incense and acetone that lingered from the day before. The maneki-neko was perched at the front desk, with its cute, white porcelain hand waving at me as if it knew that I was coming to the salon today.
Customers wouldn't come in until a few hours after opening time. In the meantime, my mom told me to take my socks off and go to the pedicure station. As water filled up the tub, I dipped my two tiny feet into the lukewarm pool. The fun started when I could feel the fizzy air bubbles tickling my ten toes; it reminded me of the sensation of drinking a cold can of Sprite on a hot summer day. After my mini-pedicure, my mom let me choose a color to paint her nails. I always chose the sparkling yellow on the top shelf, because it reminded me of the golden amulet that the store's fortune cat holds with its other hand.
I was...
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