Edited personal statement essays

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:super polished essays are grounds for an auto-rejection. something to keep in mind.

take a look at these essays: https://essaysthatworked.com/

some of them are pretty basic tbh

Anyone use this company? The personal essays seem much more basic and simpler than I'd expect.
Especially as compared to the JHU essays, the NYT profiled essays and the link to the UVA essays.

I’m the PP asking about this company and Ryan.

Thx

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some schools like more “polished” essays. Others not as much, and it’s a “flag”.

Schools that like the polished essay include:

Princeton; Stanford; Northwestern; Cornell; Rice; Emory; Michigan; USC.

How do you know this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools like more “polished” essays. Others not as much, and it’s a “flag”.

Schools that like the polished essay include:

Princeton; Stanford; Northwestern; Cornell; Rice; Emory; Michigan; USC.

How do you know this?

Load of crap. She doesn’t know that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of the issue my kid is having is that once you have to stay within confines of 100 or 250 words, there is so much editing it changes some sentence strutures and doesn't sounds as much like him. He said he's tried just leaving parts out but then the "story" doesn't seem complete so left with the editing to tighten up word limits.

Here too.

Same. We didn't hire anyone, but I read the original DC wrote that was 2x too ling, then by the time DC cut it down to size, it was so different, but still DC. A final draft should be polished.

[Anonymous]

Edited or re-written? Or just plain written by someone else? I know people who send their kid’s essays to a service and they basically re-write. It’s ridiculous.

But then the college application process is ridiculous and has spawned so many consultants, etc. Are any applications real anymore?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Worried that my kids personal statement sounds a bit too polished.

Paid for a private essay coach and I can’t tell if this type of polish is normal? What’s the best way to check?

If too polished means their voice has been taken out, submit original, unedited essay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:super polished essays are grounds for an auto-rejection. something to keep in mind.

take a look at these essays: https://essaysthatworked.com/

some of them are pretty basic tbh

Some do seem very simple. Much simpler word structure and sentence structure than the other essays.
But seemingly questionable topics? For example, you’re not supposed to talk about cooking or travel or sports or things like that right?

Here’s an example (by the way, you can see some markers of editing and AI in this essay if you look close enough):

Rica nu stia sa zica rau, ratusca, ramurica. I stared at the cracked ceiling of my bedroom in Romania, repeating the eight words under my breath. Rica nu stia sa zica rau, ratusca, ramurica. More than anything, I wanted to roll my r's, to speak Romanian without the telltale American accent. The simple exercise became a prayer. Rica nu stia sa zica rau, ratusca, ramurica. More than anything, I wanted to assimilate into the country that was my second home.

My problems with identity probably sound familiar to many children of immigration. I felt most at home when surrounded by Romanians. I ate mici on the Fourth of July with Romanians. I met my best friend through the Romanian community. But when I spoke Romanian, I was something else: an American. I wanted to demolish that language barrier, to jump up and down on its remains, to destroy what marked me as an imposter, a pretender, a fake.

Instead, I ran away. When my parents spoke to me in Romanian, I answered in English. When my friends called me a "fake Romanian," I laughed. I chose to distance myself from my culture, and I made sure everyone was aware of that choice. But beneath the surface I felt adrift in a sea of ambiguous identity. I wanted to feel at home in two cultures; instead I felt like an outsider to both.

About two years ago, I caught the baking bug. Starting out with pre-made mixes and rock-hard chocolate chip cookies, I worked my way up to custards, traybakes, and the occasional cake. I loved the methodical, precise nature of baking and came to appreciate the chemical underpinnings that made it possible. Though I did bake for myself, I baked mostly for others, revelling in the warm nods and crumb-filled smiles as people tasted the cake I'd spent the weekend making.

As I started baking more on my own, I began leafing through old family recipes scrawled on yellowed scraps or typed up in long-forgotten emails. The aromas of cornulete, fursecuri, and saratele soon wafted through our house, evoking memories of summers long ago in our grandparent's apartments in Bucharest. The all-too-loud radio in Buni Doina's kitchen as she labored over prajituri de cirese. Plucking gogosi from the fryer with Buni's scoldings ringing in our ears. Watching Buni spoon generous amounts of honey and ground walnuts atop steaming mucenici. On some days, I imagined Buni's expert eye watching me stretch dough into clumsy figure eights, five thousand miles away.

Buni's most important baking lesson, though, was not about moisture or measurements. Like me, Buni Doina can be overbearing at times, stubborn in the face of offered help, unyielding in her ways. But in the kitchen, dusted in powdered sugar, there is no denying her devotion to our happiness. Every stir of her wooden spoon is a step back to the common ground that unites us, fueled by constant, unrelenting affection. Her baking is not confined to an amalgamation of sugar, butter, and flour. It's an outstretched hand, an open invitation, a makeshift bridge thrown across the divides of age and culture.

Thanks to Buni, the reason I bake has evolved. What started as stress relief is now a lifeline to my heritage, a language that allows me to communicate with my family in ways my tongue cannot. By rolling dough for saratele and crushing walnuts for cornulete, my baking speaks more fluently to my Romanian heritage than my broken Romanian ever could. Making my parents the desserts of their childhood, seeing their warm, nostalgic smiles as they taste that first bite of cremsnit, I reconnect to our family and culture. Through baking, I've come to see food not simply as sustenance, but as a universal language, a way to say the unspoken and voice the impossible.

Is this AI?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look for examples of essays written by precocious admits to prestigious schools and compare.

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/class_of_2025_admission_essays

Dump the main points into a Chat GPT and see what it produces.

Read one of your kid's graded English assignments.

Triangulating across, do you hear your DC's voice?

Just read these essays. To me, they all sound THE SAME. Totally same style. Pretty boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look for examples of essays written by precocious admits to prestigious schools and compare.

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/class_of_2025_admission_essays

Dump the main points into a Chat GPT and see what it produces.

Read one of your kid's graded English assignments.

Triangulating across, do you hear your DC's voice?

Just read these essays. To me, they all sound THE SAME. Totally same style. Pretty boring.

These are presumably human student written, right? Here is one I coaxed out of ChatGPT with six sentences of prompts:

At six years old, I stood at the edge of a sandbox in suburban Ohio and forgot how to say “hello.”

In Ukraine, I had been the precocious child who read aloud to babusia before I could tie my shoes. I relished the rhythm of Ukrainian folk tales and corrected my parents’ grammar with theatrical confidence. But when we moved to the U.S., I began to watch my language—literally—slip from me. I learned quickly to blend in: a new alphabet, lunchbox English, phonics worksheets that taught me how to flatten the sounds in my name. At home, my mother still spoke to me in Ukrainian, but my responses grew halting, patched with English fillers. I still understood everything. I just didn’t know how to say it anymore.

That quiet erosion stayed with me. It wasn’t just the loss of a mother tongue—it felt like a loss of access to a version of myself. The girl who once asked her great-aunt to explain why words like “viter” (wind) were masculine and “vesna” (spring) were feminine became the girl who stayed silent during Ukrainian Skype calls with relatives.

But I never stopped chasing language. If anything, the disappearance of one made me more determined to explore others. When Latin was offered at my high school, I leapt. Here was a language no one spoke—but everyone used. I found it strangely comforting: etched into stone, fixed in endings, immune to forgetting. Parsing the first sentence of Caesar’s Gallic Wars was like watching a machine unspool its parts. I didn’t just want to understand the sentence—I wanted to understand the way Latin thought.

This curiosity turned obsessive. I memorized conjugation charts like other kids memorize song lyrics. I taught myself the Greek alphabet over spring break. I started writing down bits of dialogue from old Roman plays and translating them as puzzles on the bus ride to school. My Latin teacher, Mr. Templeton, eventually gave me a key to the supply cabinet so I could check out textbooks that hadn’t been touched since 1994.

Yet, learning Latin also made me think about the languages that aren’t preserved in textbooks. At night, I started recording my grandmother’s phone calls, trying to recover forgotten idioms. I’d cross-reference them with old Ukrainian grammar books I found online, piecing together a voice I thought I had lost. It was like being an archaeologist of my own childhood.

If Classics has taught me anything, it’s that language isn’t just a tool—it’s a memory. A monument. A map of how people once made sense of the world. Studying Latin hasn’t just made me a better linguist; it’s made me braver about reclaiming what I once let slip away.

At Harvard, I hope to study Classics with the same hunger I once brought to those lost Ukrainian lullabies. I want to ask hard questions—not just about syntax and scansion, but about identity, belonging, and what it means to carry more than one tongue.

And this time, I won’t forget how to say “hello.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look for examples of essays written by precocious admits to prestigious schools and compare.

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/class_of_2025_admission_essays

Dump the main points into a Chat GPT and see what it produces.

Read one of your kid's graded English assignments.

Triangulating across, do you hear your DC's voice?

Just read these essays. To me, they all sound THE SAME. Totally same style. Pretty boring.

Topics are different though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look for examples of essays written by precocious admits to prestigious schools and compare.

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/class_of_2025_admission_essays

Dump the main points into a Chat GPT and see what it produces.

Read one of your kid's graded English assignments.

Triangulating across, do you hear your DC's voice?

Just read these essays. To me, they all sound THE SAME. Totally same style. Pretty boring.

These are presumably human student written, right? Here is one I coaxed out of ChatGPT with six sentences of prompts:

At six years old, I stood at the edge of a sandbox in suburban Ohio and forgot how to say “hello.”

In Ukraine, I had been the precocious child who read aloud to babusia before I could tie my shoes. I relished the rhythm of Ukrainian folk tales and corrected my parents’ grammar with theatrical confidence. But when we moved to the U.S., I began to watch my language—literally—slip from me. I learned quickly to blend in: a new alphabet, lunchbox English, phonics worksheets that taught me how to flatten the sounds in my name. At home, my mother still spoke to me in Ukrainian, but my responses grew halting, patched with English fillers. I still understood everything. I just didn’t know how to say it anymore.

That quiet erosion stayed with me. It wasn’t just the loss of a mother tongue—it felt like a loss of access to a version of myself. The girl who once asked her great-aunt to explain why words like “viter” (wind) were masculine and “vesna” (spring) were feminine became the girl who stayed silent during Ukrainian Skype calls with relatives.

But I never stopped chasing language. If anything, the disappearance of one made me more determined to explore others. When Latin was offered at my high school, I leapt. Here was a language no one spoke—but everyone used. I found it strangely comforting: etched into stone, fixed in endings, immune to forgetting. Parsing the first sentence of Caesar’s Gallic Wars was like watching a machine unspool its parts. I didn’t just want to understand the sentence—I wanted to understand the way Latin thought.

This curiosity turned obsessive. I memorized conjugation charts like other kids memorize song lyrics. I taught myself the Greek alphabet over spring break. I started writing down bits of dialogue from old Roman plays and translating them as puzzles on the bus ride to school. My Latin teacher, Mr. Templeton, eventually gave me a key to the supply cabinet so I could check out textbooks that hadn’t been touched since 1994.

Yet, learning Latin also made me think about the languages that aren’t preserved in textbooks. At night, I started recording my grandmother’s phone calls, trying to recover forgotten idioms. I’d cross-reference them with old Ukrainian grammar books I found online, piecing together a voice I thought I had lost. It was like being an archaeologist of my own childhood.

If Classics has taught me anything, it’s that language isn’t just a tool—it’s a memory. A monument. A map of how people once made sense of the world. Studying Latin hasn’t just made me a better linguist; it’s made me braver about reclaiming what I once let slip away.

At Harvard, I hope to study Classics with the same hunger I once brought to those lost Ukrainian lullabies. I want to ask hard questions—not just about syntax and scansion, but about identity, belonging, and what it means to carry more than one tongue.

And this time, I won’t forget how to say “hello.”

This wreaks of AI.
So many tell take signs. And a genericness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look for examples of essays written by precocious admits to prestigious schools and compare.

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/class_of_2025_admission_essays

Dump the main points into a Chat GPT and see what it produces.

Read one of your kid's graded English assignments.

Triangulating across, do you hear your DC's voice?

Just read these essays. To me, they all sound THE SAME. Totally same style. Pretty boring.

These are presumably human student written, right? Here is one I coaxed out of ChatGPT with six sentences of prompts:

At six years old, I stood at the edge of a sandbox in suburban Ohio and forgot how to say “hello.”

In Ukraine, I had been the precocious child who read aloud to babusia before I could tie my shoes. I relished the rhythm of Ukrainian folk tales and corrected my parents’ grammar with theatrical confidence. But when we moved to the U.S., I began to watch my language—literally—slip from me. I learned quickly to blend in: a new alphabet, lunchbox English, phonics worksheets that taught me how to flatten the sounds in my name. At home, my mother still spoke to me in Ukrainian, but my responses grew halting, patched with English fillers. I still understood everything. I just didn’t know how to say it anymore.

That quiet erosion stayed with me. It wasn’t just the loss of a mother tongue—it felt like a loss of access to a version of myself. The girl who once asked her great-aunt to explain why words like “viter” (wind) were masculine and “vesna” (spring) were feminine became the girl who stayed silent during Ukrainian Skype calls with relatives.

But I never stopped chasing language. If anything, the disappearance of one made me more determined to explore others. When Latin was offered at my high school, I leapt. Here was a language no one spoke—but everyone used. I found it strangely comforting: etched into stone, fixed in endings, immune to forgetting. Parsing the first sentence of Caesar’s Gallic Wars was like watching a machine unspool its parts. I didn’t just want to understand the sentence—I wanted to understand the way Latin thought.

This curiosity turned obsessive. I memorized conjugation charts like other kids memorize song lyrics. I taught myself the Greek alphabet over spring break. I started writing down bits of dialogue from old Roman plays and translating them as puzzles on the bus ride to school. My Latin teacher, Mr. Templeton, eventually gave me a key to the supply cabinet so I could check out textbooks that hadn’t been touched since 1994.

Yet, learning Latin also made me think about the languages that aren’t preserved in textbooks. At night, I started recording my grandmother’s phone calls, trying to recover forgotten idioms. I’d cross-reference them with old Ukrainian grammar books I found online, piecing together a voice I thought I had lost. It was like being an archaeologist of my own childhood.

If Classics has taught me anything, it’s that language isn’t just a tool—it’s a memory. A monument. A map of how people once made sense of the world. Studying Latin hasn’t just made me a better linguist; it’s made me braver about reclaiming what I once let slip away.

At Harvard, I hope to study Classics with the same hunger I once brought to those lost Ukrainian lullabies. I want to ask hard questions—not just about syntax and scansion, but about identity, belonging, and what it means to carry more than one tongue.

And this time, I won’t forget how to say “hello.”

This wreaks of AI.
So many tell take signs. And a genericness.

Actually this passed the auto AI checks I tried. If readers flag this, they may have to flag many real students who read extensively and have precocious vocabulary. As for genericness, have you read many real college student essays? Even the ones complimented by AOs often reek (not wreak) of genericness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look for examples of essays written by precocious admits to prestigious schools and compare.

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/class_of_2025_admission_essays

Dump the main points into a Chat GPT and see what it produces.

Read one of your kid's graded English assignments.

Triangulating across, do you hear your DC's voice?

Just read these essays. To me, they all sound THE SAME. Totally same style. Pretty boring.

These are presumably human student written, right? Here is one I coaxed out of ChatGPT with six sentences of prompts:

At six years old, I stood at the edge of a sandbox in suburban Ohio and forgot how to say “hello.”

In Ukraine, I had been the precocious child who read aloud to babusia before I could tie my shoes. I relished the rhythm of Ukrainian folk tales and corrected my parents’ grammar with theatrical confidence. But when we moved to the U.S., I began to watch my language—literally—slip from me. I learned quickly to blend in: a new alphabet, lunchbox English, phonics worksheets that taught me how to flatten the sounds in my name. At home, my mother still spoke to me in Ukrainian, but my responses grew halting, patched with English fillers. I still understood everything. I just didn’t know how to say it anymore.

That quiet erosion stayed with me. It wasn’t just the loss of a mother tongue—it felt like a loss of access to a version of myself. The girl who once asked her great-aunt to explain why words like “viter” (wind) were masculine and “vesna” (spring) were feminine became the girl who stayed silent during Ukrainian Skype calls with relatives.

But I never stopped chasing language. If anything, the disappearance of one made me more determined to explore others. When Latin was offered at my high school, I leapt. Here was a language no one spoke—but everyone used. I found it strangely comforting: etched into stone, fixed in endings, immune to forgetting. Parsing the first sentence of Caesar’s Gallic Wars was like watching a machine unspool its parts. I didn’t just want to understand the sentence—I wanted to understand the way Latin thought.

This curiosity turned obsessive. I memorized conjugation charts like other kids memorize song lyrics. I taught myself the Greek alphabet over spring break. I started writing down bits of dialogue from old Roman plays and translating them as puzzles on the bus ride to school. My Latin teacher, Mr. Templeton, eventually gave me a key to the supply cabinet so I could check out textbooks that hadn’t been touched since 1994.

Yet, learning Latin also made me think about the languages that aren’t preserved in textbooks. At night, I started recording my grandmother’s phone calls, trying to recover forgotten idioms. I’d cross-reference them with old Ukrainian grammar books I found online, piecing together a voice I thought I had lost. It was like being an archaeologist of my own childhood.

If Classics has taught me anything, it’s that language isn’t just a tool—it’s a memory. A monument. A map of how people once made sense of the world. Studying Latin hasn’t just made me a better linguist; it’s made me braver about reclaiming what I once let slip away.

At Harvard, I hope to study Classics with the same hunger I once brought to those lost Ukrainian lullabies. I want to ask hard questions—not just about syntax and scansion, but about identity, belonging, and what it means to carry more than one tongue.

And this time, I won’t forget how to say “hello.”

This wreaks of AI.
So many tell take signs. And a genericness.

Actually this passed the auto AI checks I tried. If readers flag this, they may have to flag many real students who read extensively and have precocious vocabulary. As for genericness, have you read many real college student essays? Even the ones complimented by AOs often reek (not wreak) of genericness.

If you read enough (paid) AI, you can recognize it. It's the same content and vagueness.

It's the tell-tale alliteration, sentence structure, and word choice. There are cheat sheets now out there if you work in the publishing industry. I can spot it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look for examples of essays written by precocious admits to prestigious schools and compare.

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/class_of_2025_admission_essays

Dump the main points into a Chat GPT and see what it produces.

Read one of your kid's graded English assignments.

Triangulating across, do you hear your DC's voice?

Just read these essays. To me, they all sound THE SAME. Totally same style. Pretty boring.

These are presumably human student written, right? Here is one I coaxed out of ChatGPT with six sentences of prompts:

At six years old, I stood at the edge of a sandbox in suburban Ohio and forgot how to say “hello.”

In Ukraine, I had been the precocious child who read aloud to babusia before I could tie my shoes. I relished the rhythm of Ukrainian folk tales and corrected my parents’ grammar with theatrical confidence. But when we moved to the U.S., I began to watch my language—literally—slip from me. I learned quickly to blend in: a new alphabet, lunchbox English, phonics worksheets that taught me how to flatten the sounds in my name. At home, my mother still spoke to me in Ukrainian, but my responses grew halting, patched with English fillers. I still understood everything. I just didn’t know how to say it anymore.

That quiet erosion stayed with me. It wasn’t just the loss of a mother tongue—it felt like a loss of access to a version of myself. The girl who once asked her great-aunt to explain why words like “viter” (wind) were masculine and “vesna” (spring) were feminine became the girl who stayed silent during Ukrainian Skype calls with relatives.

But I never stopped chasing language. If anything, the disappearance of one made me more determined to explore others. When Latin was offered at my high school, I leapt. Here was a language no one spoke—but everyone used. I found it strangely comforting: etched into stone, fixed in endings, immune to forgetting. Parsing the first sentence of Caesar’s Gallic Wars was like watching a machine unspool its parts. I didn’t just want to understand the sentence—I wanted to understand the way Latin thought.

This curiosity turned obsessive. I memorized conjugation charts like other kids memorize song lyrics. I taught myself the Greek alphabet over spring break. I started writing down bits of dialogue from old Roman plays and translating them as puzzles on the bus ride to school. My Latin teacher, Mr. Templeton, eventually gave me a key to the supply cabinet so I could check out textbooks that hadn’t been touched since 1994.

Yet, learning Latin also made me think about the languages that aren’t preserved in textbooks. At night, I started recording my grandmother’s phone calls, trying to recover forgotten idioms. I’d cross-reference them with old Ukrainian grammar books I found online, piecing together a voice I thought I had lost. It was like being an archaeologist of my own childhood.

If Classics has taught me anything, it’s that language isn’t just a tool—it’s a memory. A monument. A map of how people once made sense of the world. Studying Latin hasn’t just made me a better linguist; it’s made me braver about reclaiming what I once let slip away.

At Harvard, I hope to study Classics with the same hunger I once brought to those lost Ukrainian lullabies. I want to ask hard questions—not just about syntax and scansion, but about identity, belonging, and what it means to carry more than one tongue.

And this time, I won’t forget how to say “hello.”

This is really really bad. People, don't do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look for examples of essays written by precocious admits to prestigious schools and compare.

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/class_of_2025_admission_essays

Dump the main points into a Chat GPT and see what it produces.

Read one of your kid's graded English assignments.

Triangulating across, do you hear your DC's voice?

Just read these essays. To me, they all sound THE SAME. Totally same style. Pretty boring.

These are presumably human student written, right? Here is one I coaxed out of ChatGPT with six sentences of prompts:

At six years old, I stood at the edge of a sandbox in suburban Ohio and forgot how to say “hello.”

In Ukraine, I had been the precocious child who read aloud to babusia before I could tie my shoes. I relished the rhythm of Ukrainian folk tales and corrected my parents’ grammar with theatrical confidence. But when we moved to the U.S., I began to watch my language—literally—slip from me. I learned quickly to blend in: a new alphabet, lunchbox English, phonics worksheets that taught me how to flatten the sounds in my name. At home, my mother still spoke to me in Ukrainian, but my responses grew halting, patched with English fillers. I still understood everything. I just didn’t know how to say it anymore.

That quiet erosion stayed with me. It wasn’t just the loss of a mother tongue—it felt like a loss of access to a version of myself. The girl who once asked her great-aunt to explain why words like “viter” (wind) were masculine and “vesna” (spring) were feminine became the girl who stayed silent during Ukrainian Skype calls with relatives.

But I never stopped chasing language. If anything, the disappearance of one made me more determined to explore others. When Latin was offered at my high school, I leapt. Here was a language no one spoke—but everyone used. I found it strangely comforting: etched into stone, fixed in endings, immune to forgetting. Parsing the first sentence of Caesar’s Gallic Wars was like watching a machine unspool its parts. I didn’t just want to understand the sentence—I wanted to understand the way Latin thought.

This curiosity turned obsessive. I memorized conjugation charts like other kids memorize song lyrics. I taught myself the Greek alphabet over spring break. I started writing down bits of dialogue from old Roman plays and translating them as puzzles on the bus ride to school. My Latin teacher, Mr. Templeton, eventually gave me a key to the supply cabinet so I could check out textbooks that hadn’t been touched since 1994.

Yet, learning Latin also made me think about the languages that aren’t preserved in textbooks. At night, I started recording my grandmother’s phone calls, trying to recover forgotten idioms. I’d cross-reference them with old Ukrainian grammar books I found online, piecing together a voice I thought I had lost. It was like being an archaeologist of my own childhood.

If Classics has taught me anything, it’s that language isn’t just a tool—it’s a memory. A monument. A map of how people once made sense of the world. Studying Latin hasn’t just made me a better linguist; it’s made me braver about reclaiming what I once let slip away.

At Harvard, I hope to study Classics with the same hunger I once brought to those lost Ukrainian lullabies. I want to ask hard questions—not just about syntax and scansion, but about identity, belonging, and what it means to carry more than one tongue.

And this time, I won’t forget how to say “hello.”

Meh