In three thousand words or less, write about a person who has inspired you in a profound way. Please demonstrate the effect of his or her life on yours as specifcally as possible.

Sakura Kinomoto, Yale University Application Essay, December 18

Audrey Hepburn was born in Brussels on May 4, 1929, the daughter of a Dutch baroness and an Anglo-Irish businessman. The name on her birth certificate was Aurdrey Kathleen wan Heemstra Rustom. When she was only three weeks old, she got sick with whooping cough and her heart stopped, but her determined mother revived her by spanking her. And even though she was only a baby, Audrey must have learned a lesson that day because for the rest of her life, even when she was sick, she lived her life to the fullest. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by the pressure of my AP exams or my crazy schedule, I think of Audrey and feel inspired.

I beleive that if you apply yourself and work hard toward a goal, you will be rewarded. Audrey was rewarded by being discovered by...

It was Monday, the first day of midterm week, and the girls in the senior AP French class were sitting in their desks in a third-floor classroom, wearing their supershort gray wool uniform skirts, black TSE cahsmere turtleneck sweaters, black Wolford tights, and black suede Gucci loafers, hunched over their blank blue exam booklets, madly scribbling away. Sakura sat in the front row, near the proctor, who happened to be her lame film teacher, Mr. Beckham, who she happened to despise because he'd given her a C on her last film paper. The paper had been on Woody Allen movies and how they were utterly boring and pointless just like many things in life. As it turned out, even though Mr. Beckham was a Woody Allen fanatic. He'd called Sakura's paper "condescending." What a prick.

The beginning of the exam was a series of questions that had to be answered in one concise, descriptive paragraph. The first question was Qu'est-ce que vous voulex faire pendant votre temps libres? "What do you like to do in your free time?"

That was beyond easy. Saukra liked to shop for exquisitely designed, expensive shoes, eat steak fries, drink Ketel One and tonic with Tomoyo and smoke a lot. In the summers she liked to play tennis. She used to like kissing Branden on her bed, but now she didn't do that anymore. She was too busy doing all those other things.

The next question was Decrivez votre famille. "Describe your family."

Sakura let out a exasperated sigh. She was practically fluent in French, so she knew the words for "uncaring and careless," "stupid flake," and "overweight, tacky loser," which was how she would truthfully describe her father, her mother, and her step-father. But Madame Chow, her French teacher, had a major pole up her ass and no sense of humor at all, so it was unlikely she'd be impressed by Sakura's description. Instead, Sakura generously described her father as "as handsome fellow whose favourite hobby is the same as mine: buying shoes."; her mother as "a good-natured woman who would forget her own name unless someone reminded her" ; and her stepfather as ; "a jolly man with a loud laugh and unusual taste in clothes."

The next question was Imaginez qu'un djinn apparait sur votre epaule pour vous dire qu'il vous accordera un seul souhait. Quel serait votre souhait?

Sakura tapped her number two pencil against the wooden desk. What would she wish for? She wished she would get into Yale obviously. And she wished her mother and step-father would stay on their honeymoon forever so she wouldn't have to live with them or see them kissing and fondling each other in public all the time. She wished Branden would move away from Hong Kong so she wouldn't ever have to bump into him or his little girlfriend again. She really wanted a pair of tan leather boots with skinny four-inch heels; she just hadn't found the right pari yet. And a sheepskin jacket. And a fox fur hat with earflaps. And a new Dior trenchcoat.

Sakura wished her father lived in Hong Kong instead of France so he could take her shopping more often. And she wished Tomoyo was in AP French so they could sit next to each other during their exam and pass notes about all the crazy stories in the papers today about Rob and Tomoyo. She also wished she and Branden had gone ahead and had sex when they were together so she wouldn't still be a virgin. And she kind of wished she hadn't stayed up so late on Saturday night with Syaoran, Eriol, Rob and Tomoyo, because she was still a little hungover from it. Plus Syaoran called her twice yesterday and left messages on her machine, even though she had specifically given him a fake number so she would never have to hear from him again. Not that she was even considering calling him back. Mei Ling had even left for Tokyo last night too and had called her that morning to tell her.

Saturday night had been fun, but the last fucking thing she needed right now was a new boyfriend. Mr Beckham cleared his throat nosily, and Sakura lifted her eyes from her exam paper and stared at him. He had yellow hair. Not blond yellow, like most people at school, but yellow like a person's snot when they're seriously sick. Their eyes met, and then Mr. Beckham did a weird thing: He blushed.

Excusez-moi?

Sakura turned away, horrified. Her foot jiggled nervously as she looked at the question. Vous avez une desire. Que desirez vous?

She wished very much that her skeevy film studies teacher who she thought hated her hadn't just looked like he might actually have a crush on her. She wished she were on the beach right now instead of freezing her ass off in an underheated classroom. She wished she'd eaten breakfast, because she was starving. She wished a lot of things, but one answer would have to do.

She wrote down the thing about getting into Yale, even though it seemed totally redundant for a senior in high school to write about wanting to get into college, but she'd rather be boring than reveal any juicy personal details to Madame Chow anyways. Then she drew a little high-heeled boot in the margin of her blue exam book and looked up at Mr. Beckham again. He was still staring at her, his cheeks a gross shade of pupley-red. What was he doing? Plotting her murder, or imagining what she would look like in her underwear? Sakura looked away, disgusted. She glanced at her platinum Cartier tank watch. Another fucking hour to go. Next question..

Two floors below Sakura, in the school auditorium, Tomoyo was toiling over her American history exam.

Not. Tomoyo wasn't exactly the toiling type..and who needed to know about American history when you lived in Asia, in Hong Kong?

She had already counted the number of split ends in the end of her ponytail-nine-and she'd answered the question about the English involvement in World War II with a very short essay about how during wartime there were shortages of everything and English woman had to give up wearing stockings because there was no nylon avaliable. Instead, those fearless, industrious, fashion-conscious women had painted lines down the back of their legs to make it look like they were wearing them.

Tomoyo sighed. In those days a girl could probably spend a night out with a guy and not have picture plastered all over the gossip pages the next day. Pictures of Tomoyo and Rob at Gorgon had appeared in all the magazines and countless websites, all naming them "the new 'it' couple."

It was so ridiculous. She'd kissed Rob good-bye in the wee hours outside the Centeral Hotel bar on Sunday morning, and he'd gone off to catch a private plane down to Baja, where he was reshooting some scenes for a music video of his before he went away for Christmas. He'd been incredibly sweet and they'd had an awesome time that night, but they were definitely were not a couple. A couple meant you saw each other every day. It meant you were in love. And though she and Flow might have been a little in lust, they were very definetly not in love, despite the fact that he had already sent her flowers. Besides Eriol seemed a bit more decent then him.

Tomoyo was used to getting gifts from guys, so the flowers didn't faze her, as long as Rob didn't start sending her things every day. Sometimes a guy could go a little overboard. Take Josh Edner for example. He'd followed Tomoyo and Sakura around like a puppy dog when she'd returned from boarding school in the fall, and had even written both of them poems that were so lovesick and serious, they were kind of scary. Lucky for her, he'd hooked up with some other girl, who was equally intense, and they made a great couple. But Tomoyo wasn't interested in being matched up with anyone. She treasured her independence, her ability to follow her whimsy and do what she pleased. She was a spur-of-the-moment kind of girl-couplehood would only cramp her style.

Tomoyo stared at the next question. When did the American armed forces enter World War II, and why?

A more pertinent question was When was she ever going to use this knowledge? The answer was pretty obvious: Never! Who cared about what had happened in the past when the future lay ahead of her with fabulous surprises and untold crziness hiding behind every curve and bend?

Someone tapped her on the shoulder and Tomoyo looked up. It was Mr. Hanson, her Latin teacher and the proctor for the history exam. He was tall and thin and was utterly unamusing.

"What?" Tomoyo said, startled. She knew she'd been spacing out, but she couldn't get in trouble for that during an exam could she? "Did I do something wrong?"

Then she noticed that Mr. Hanson was smiling. He shoved a copy of a magazine into her hands. It was turned to Page Six, the celebrity gossip page, where there was a huge picture of Tomoyo and Rob getting into a cab after leaving Gorgon on Saturday night. "I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I noticed you were finished with your exam, and I was just wondering if it would be possible for you to ask Rob to sign this," he whispered. "I'm such a huge fan. And it would be great if you would sign it too."

Tomoyo blinked. First of all, she'd had no idea Mr. Hanson was cool enough to even know who Rob was. Second of all, she had no intention of asking Rob for anything. And third of all- Hel-lo? She was nowhere near finished with her test.

"Rob's in Baja," she whispered back. "Is it okay if I just sign it?" She glanced around the room self-consciously. Most of the other girls had stopped writing and were either staring at them or chatting amongst themselves.

"I heard Rob and Tomoyo are engaged," some girl told her friend. "They're getting married on New Years Eve, in Vegas. At the Bellagio."

"The magazine said they met at the Black and Whtie on Saturday," Nikki told Tina. "But that's so not true."

"They met in rehab last year, right?" Tina said. "Rob's been in rehab, like, twelve times. But so has she."

Tomoyo sighed at all the rumors and signed her name and handed it back to Mr. Hanson, hoping he wouldn't give her a bad grade in Latin now that she hadn't gotten him Rob's autograph.

"Thanks," he whispered, examining her signature. He smiled excitedly. "I'm sure this is going to be worth a fortune one day!"

"No problem," Tomoyo said, humoring him. The buzz in the room was getting louder and louder.

"All right, girls. Back to work." Mr Hanson called as he went back to his desk.

Tomoyo looked down at her exam paper again. But before she could even begin to answer the question she was swarmed by a dozen of her classmates, all clutching copies of magazines for her to sign. Mr Hanson couldn't very well tell them to stop when he was the one who'd started it in the first place.

"All right," he said, ignoring Tomoyo's pleading look. "I'll give everyone five extra minutes on your exam. Five minutes, and back to your seats."

"Me first!" cried Samantha, shoving her copy of a magazine at Tomoyo.

"No, me!" cried Violet, pushing past Samantha out of the way.

Tomoyo giggled to herself in amazement. She hesitated, pen poised above the photograph in Violet's copy of the paper. Then she wrote in her trademark loopy scrawl, Tomoyo.

Wow, this chapter is officially the most longest chapter I have ever written. Over 2000 words..haha. Well like I promised it'd be longer and everything. Well hope you guys liked it..and here's my msn if anyone wants to waste time with me,

Well review for me dearrlingss! Thank youuu!