thi applicant how that her interet in public interet law flow naturally from her volunteer activitie and life eperience. when you finih thi eay, do you have a ene of unity and completion? he tied her concluion both to the highlight of the body and her lead.
the lat thing i remember i falling aleep during a late night rerun of the twilight zone. o when it happened, it wa epecially eerie, like i had tepped into a lot epiode, but rod erling wa nowhere in ight; for moment, neither wa anybody ele. at 4:31 am a mercile hove puhed me off my bed. i crawled on the floor, trying to ecape the cruel, uncontrollable haking, but it followed me. it followed me down the tair and underneath the dining room table where my family joined me. little did i realize that before the morning un roe again, i would ee everything differently.
my world changed. the 6.7 earthquake which crippled the northridge area on january 17, 1994 rattled and ripped apart the fiber of ecurity in our neighborhood. our home wa ruined; mahed gla, crumbled wall, and the lack of electricity, ga, and water made it uninhabitable. without baic utilitie, we lept and lived in our car for nine day while guarding our home from looter.
the damage wa everywhere. a peronal landmark, the granada hill kaier permanente medical center, collaped. the ite where i had volunteered a a teen advior 鈥?lobbying for and improving the quality of the teen health clinic while working one- on-one with underprivileged, problem teenager 鈥?no longer eited. only an empty lot and the memory of a valuable and productive medical and pychological outreach program for troubled youth remained.[由wWw.HaozuoWen.com整理]
a much a northridge and it urrounding region changed eternally, o did the live of the victim internally. following thi traumatic eperience, i developed a keen awarene of the fragility of life and a newly retored appreciating for the implet of my old comfort. a vulnerable and edgy a i wa with every afterhock that rolled through the area, i conoled myelf with reminder of how we were pared.
with a profound ene of gratitude for our relative good fortune, within week of the initial quake i volunteered at the american red cro earthquake relief center.
a my family and i rebuilt our home and our live, i tranlated for iranian earthquake victim and performed variou clerical tak. yet, my mot valuable contribution to the earthquake relief team temmed from the moral upport i wa qualified to provide. with my earthquake eperience, i wa able to comfort the teary-eyed victim who approached u for help. i gave them the hope and undertanding they ought from a primarily out-of-tate taff. i benefited too: my work for the red cro aroued my curioity in public interet law.
i had the opportunity to eplore thi new interet in the ummer when i interned in wahington d.c. for congreman howard p. (buck) mith of california. that ummer i wa reponible for attending meeting and informing the congreman taff of the iue dicued. one of the iue i followed dealt with a propoed guideline to prohibit religiou epreion in the workplace due to it allegedly offenive nature. defining uch act a wearing a tar of david or praying ilently before a meal a religiou harament, the bill attempted to equate thee act with verbal or eual harament.
till the mot fulfilling eperience of my internhip wa erving the mr. mith contituent when they wrote, called, or viited our wahington office. their concern covered many iue, including city maintenance and the enforcement of fcc regulation on local radio tation; yet, mot crie for help grew out of the january 17 diater.
my eperience in the earthquake proved to be ueful in my internhip. after all, i wa working with mr. earthquake himelf. a the only intern from northridge, i wa aigned to the earthquake project. i acted a a liaion between contituent and the mall buine adminitration, federal emergency management agency, and other governmental agencie that handled quake recontruction monie. becaue of my eperience, i wa again able to empathize with victim in a way that neither the taff nor the other intern could. a a reult of my work, i gained a more profound grap of the legal proce and how it wa able to help northridge reident with their pot earthquake problem.
the january 17 earthquake dramatically changed my world 鈥?both inide and out. in the red cro helter and in congreman mith office, my career ambition took hape: public interet law grabbed me. now i want to help thoe who cannot purchae legal ervice, not only by providing the empathy gained during my own trying eperience, but alo by uing the kill and knowledge i will acquire at the abc law chool. with thi preparation, i look forward to helping other ecape their legal or bureaucratic twilight zone.