this is much stronger; the writing is clear, well presented, and i saw no major writing errors. you also delve into the case specifics, to support your points about the glass ceiling, and that makes a more effective argument.
grade on paper 2: a
-my advisor

rock on! i'm back in the game.

some excerpts from what i wrote while in columbus (i forewent* hocking hills for an entire afternoon in my future hometown):

(*should be a word)

i'm sitting on a park bench in columbus. sipping a mango smoothie made with soy milk, a hemp tote bag beside me. a fly is perched comfortably on my knee, and i don't mind its company. dead cows fashiond into $30 sandals rest on the ground, but then this is a 'transitional period.' my hemp sandals very well may have arrived in the mail today.

here i am in columbus, a city that, upon just my third visit, feels like home. or at least, a place that could very easily become home. a place that would finally feel like home. [if such a place exists after a year or more.] i'm ready for city life, and all the architecture, vegan-friendly cafes and museums that come with it.

i feel like i don't owe anyone anything here. no one recognizes this face; their gaze passes over it and away again like it's nothing: unfamiliar, but it belongs. i felt like i belonged walking casually down high street in my incongruous hemp and leather. and i feel like i belong now: no one questions my presence here. i am girl sitting on park bench writing thoughtfully in a journal gazing with wonder at the trees and sky. perhaps odd in and of itself, but i fit.

i could so easily call this home.

i second-guessed my planned adventure until i fell asleep last night, second-guessed it in the shower, on graham road, all the way down 8, continuing down 71. do i need to waste the gas and the mileage? aren't there coffee shops within 30 minutes of here? don't i have better things to do? i wasn't sure i was going to drive all the way to columbus until the corp limits sign sprung up on me. and by the time i reached downtown i knew - no, there is nothing better i could be doing today. i need to be here.

yes, i came here as an escape. escape from what i have no choice but to call home for the next two and a half months, the same place i've lived in and returned to every year of my life, the place where there is absolutely no one and nothing for me at all. i am tired. that's the only word for it. tired of working a lame summer job only to immediately hand all the profits over to my hopelessly mediocre school. tired of coming home to a mother who thinks everything i believe in is a phase. tired of no friends around here i can relate to, and tired of conflicting work schedules with the friends i need to see. it's stifling. it's a waste of my time. and it is unbearable because i know what my time would be better spent doing - i'm not flailing about anymore. i know who i want to be, what i want to be doing and who i want to be doing it with. all that is on hold for another two and a half months. so i'm just waiting for the time to pass.

... ps. as i was writing this, a man came up to me and told me his car broke down and he needed $10. i told him i had no money on me and wished him luck. i decided today that on 99% of your days, 100% of the people you meet are really good people. if that estimate is off, i'd rater err in that direction.

pps. i love a young man who loves walking his dogs.

so columbus was wonderful, but strange without lani and josh. somehow that has become 'our' place in my mind, more so than marietta. which is weird.

yesterday was wonderful as well, though for some reason i feel really weird writing about it here. (it's probably a really good reason, i just can't quite articulate it.) not that i haven't discussed such things at length in this forum. anyway! it was so nice to reconnect with the one person from high school who still (or ever did) means a lot to me. and not too painful. just good. now i'm embarrassed.

and i met an old middle school friend in the bathroom at borders, and i came home to a phone message from the last person in high school i want to talk to, and to an email from a less-undesireable high school friend inviting the old gang (of which i was never really a part) out. weird.

mc folks - gilman mary is totally the waitress in romy & michelle's high school reunion.

my dad bought vegetarian hot dogs! he rocks so hard.

and the happy humanist car emblem is back in stock on evolve fish!

ta da.

(* ...and i was like, haha!' [ok, it was funny to us.])