No one reads to hear someone complain about the weather or how poorly their children are behaving. You have to give the readers a reason to turn the page. As a writer you have to invite someone to turn the page. And that is a skill you have to refine. That is why you have to read. You have to read to learn what it is that makes people turn the page.

I don't like being left to my own thoughts.

I would start by writing to an adult, maybe a high school teacher, or maybe an aunt or uncle, and writing and telling them why you want to go to a particular university. That's probably what you would actually sound like. Then write your letter to the university, and put those 2 versions in front of you, and look at the difference between those 2 things.

Hugh returned from his trip, and days later I still sounded like a Red Chinese asking questions about the democratic hinterlands. "And you actually saw people smoking in restaurants? Really! And offices, too? Oh, tell me again about the ashtrays in the hospital waiting room, and don't leave anything out."

They were Jesuits," she told me. "That means they believe in God but not in terlet paper. You should have seen their underwear. Disgusting.

Sometimes with 'The New Yorker,' they have grammar rules that just don't feel right in my mouth.

To say that a humorist exaggerates to get big laughs, I don't see how that's big news.