提到4D你会想到什么？3D-movie。“No”4D指代4个以D字母开头的单词："Death"（死亡）、"Depression"（沮丧）、"Drugs"（毒品）、"Divorce"（离婚）。这四个词语在生活中是很常见的，也是人们最想避开不谈的话题。而作者却铤而走险，写了一段自己幼年生活中不开心的往事。
我出生在俄国首都莫斯科市外的郊区，1991年7月11日。那个时候俄国还是苏联。我还小，脑海里残留的都是模糊的记忆。有印象的事情：有一次我正在吃隔壁（公共花园，离我家有1英里的距离）种的一种叫“覆盆子”的水果，我的妈妈正在种土豆。记得那天阳光明媚特别舒服，吃完水果，满嘴都是覆盆子甜甜的味道。时常有人去“光顾”那个花园，尽管是不道德的。我明白，黄瓜与土豆种在哪里都是同样的味道。而那时我4岁了。
过完5岁生日后，全家一起搬去了纽约。尽管父母都是受过高等教育的工程师，但是，刚去美国的前些年确实异常的艰难。那时，没有积蓄也不会说英语，父母只能尽可能的找自己能胜任的工作：父亲在大街上发传单，母亲给别人做家务。我们住在西大街第190号，华盛顿高地（贫民窟）。我的童年时光就是俄国、西班牙与美国的混杂体。我曾喜欢过一路陪伴我成长的城市——嘈杂混乱、小道八卦还有流动的生活。这一切塑造了现在的我。直到今天，我在国家地理杂志中才领略到竞争残酷的市中心与饱受战争摧残的村落之间存在的晦涩美。
我们在同一个地方搬了好几次家，而我和我的哥哥在4年里转了3所学校。我已经无法想起什么是幸福的家庭，而唯一确定的是我不幸福。举家搬迁到美国后，父母的婚姻也岌岌可危。后2年里，双方已经完全失去了和平解决问题的可能。他们离婚那年我9岁。大部分的孩子在面对父母离婚这个问题上往往选择只字不提，而我却感到了真实的快乐。我不必再去担心他们的婚姻问题，我可以真实的去做自己。讽刺的是，要做真实的自己还是需要一段很长的时间。
离婚后的几个月，我母亲在新泽西找到了一份关于工程师的工作。我一度很兴奋，可以去看看新的地方，而随后很长一段时间我很不适应。在新泽西生活的第一年是我觉得最痛苦的一年。虽然，母亲很早回家，但大部分时间我还是孤单一人。在大把孤单的时间里，我选择了一种最舒服摆托孤单的方式——看书。只有在Lewis Carroll, Jules Verne和Charlotte Brontë的小说里，我才能找到真实的世界。
生活中的问题无处不在，只是换了一种形式而已。好比我吧！母亲失业没有了保险。但是，我却找到了一个自我疏解压力的好办法，就是无视其存在。这段时间，我进入了当地联合健康与科学学院 （Academy of Allied Health and Science in Neptune）读高中。对我而言，这是一个全新的开始。我人生中第一次觉得，可以真诚的对待身边的每一个人。最终，我开始真诚的面对自己。
还是小孩子的时候我就会感受真实的存在，像长时间的盯着太阳，即使很不舒服。仅仅去感受阳光对我来说是不够的，最重要的是通过眼睛去看。同样的，我必须接受我的过去，因为我需要知道过去的我是什么样子。起初，当我回忆过去直视过去的时候我会很痛苦，好像过去的种种把我变成了坏人。最后我开始理解我一直生活在谎言里。如果是的话，克服困难给了我决心而换位思考让我变得独一无二。之后，我选择直视太阳而不是被假象蒙蔽双眼：过去与现在都真实的暴露在我眼前。
分析
这篇ESSAY，作者选取了一个很宽泛的题材联系整个的生活而不是单独某一件事情，这是为ESSAY的行文所忌的。
很多学生会刻意回避一些关于死亡、失败、毒品以及离婚这样的话题。而作者却大胆的引用了父母离婚的话题，这是值得赞许的。
作者用词很简单，文章风格却具有讽刺的效果。行文直截了当、真实不做作，刻画了一个真实坦诚的人物形象。
作者引用了一个如此宽泛的话题，没有直接表达整体对人生转折点的关键影响——这本身对ESSAY是不利的，这篇ESSAY的成功，并不代表这类题材是容易成功的，勿受本文误导。
参考全文：
（5）NATALIYA NEDZHVETSKAYA—“MY LIFE”
I was born on the outskirts of Moscow, Russia, on July 11, 1991, while it was still the Soviet Union. At times my childhood memories seem more like vague dreams than concrete occurrences. In one of my earliest memories, I’m eating raspberries from our neighbor’s bushes while my mother digs for potatoes. It’s a warm, sunny day and the raspberries feel tart and sweet on my tongue. I am at the communal gardens about a mile from where we used to live. People have continued visiting the gardens even after it’s become politically incorrect. Apparently, cucumbers and potatoes taste the same whether grown under communism or capitalism. I am four at the time.
Sometime after my fifth birthday, my father, my mother, my brother, and I left Moscow and moved to New York City. Despite both my parents having been college-educated engineers, we had a very difficult time during our first few years in the United States. Having virtually no savings and no English-speaking skills, my parents had to accept whatever jobs they could find. My father handed out flyers on the street and my mother cleaned houses. We lived on West 190th Street, deep in Washington Heights. My childhood years were a strange mixture of Russian, Hispanic, and American influences. I loved growing up in the city—the immeasurable chaos, the minute overlapping details of people’s lives, the constant motion were all instrumental in shaping the person I’ve become. To this day, I find some sort of somber beauty in National Geographic editorials on inner-city environments and war-torn villages.
Living in several different places in that same neighborhood of Washington Heights, my brother and I changed schools three times in four years. My family’s dynamic changed as well. I don’t know if I’ve ever been part of a truly happy family, but I’ve certainly been part of an unhappy one. My parents’ marriage began falling apart almost as soon as we moved to America, if not before. For the last two years of their marriage, civil conversation ceased completely. I was nine when my parents were divorced. Most children have a difficult time with divorce, dreading the very mention of the word. I was actually happier after my parents went their separate ways. It meant I could finally come into my own, rather than constantly having to worry about the problems of others. Ironically, coming into my own would take a much longer time than I had anticipated.
A few months after the divorce, my mother found an ad for an engineering job in suburban New Jersey. I had been excited for the move, relishing the idea of seeing a new place, but soon discovered the devastation of homesickness. My first year in New Jersey was one of the most miserable in my life. Though my mother came home much earlier, I was alone a greater portion of the time. In those lonely hours, I found the quiet comfort of books—truly one of the most valuable discoveries a person can make. While living in the fictional worlds of Lewis Carroll, Jules Verne, and Charlotte Brontë, I gradually adjusted to the brave, new world around me.
Problems have a tendency of staying around, changing their shape but retaining their complexity. There were still periods of difficulty in my life, such as my mother’s unemployment and lack of health insurance, but I found myself ignoring these problems as best I could. Ignorance wasn’t a solution but it was the best I could manage. During this time, I entered high school, attending the Academy of Allied Health and Science in Neptune, New Jersey. It was the fresh start I desperately needed. For the first time in my life, I felt I was being honest with the people around me. As a result, I started being honest with myself.
When I was a child I would stare at the sun, despite the blinding pain, just to make sure it was really there. It wasn’t enough just seeing the light around me or feeling the sunshine on my skin—I needed to see it with my own eyes. In this same way, I felt I had to accept my past because I needed to know I was more than the present. Though it was painful at first, I realized that I still felt guilty for the difficulties I had encountered, as if those obstacles had somehow made me a worse person. I finally came to understand the lie I was living. If anything, overcoming those obstacles had given me resolve and empathy that made me unique. At the end of my delusion, I stared at the sun and rather than being blinded by what I saw, the past and present became strangely illuminated.
COMMENTARY
In this essay, the author undertakes the difficult task of relating the story of her entire life instead of focusing on a singular event or experience. This essay is effective, but perhaps it could have been stronger had the writer chosen to concentrate on a less expansive topic.
Students are often instructed to avoid writing about the notorious four D’s—death, depression, drugs, and divorce. While this advice holds some merit, it should not deter students from addressing these issues if they truly contributed to life-altering experiences. This writer does just that by tackling an ambitious topic: the consequences of her parents’ divorce.
While doing so, the author delivers her words with ease. Her style is lyrical and effortless. She addresses the joys and difficulties in her life with the same weight, neither demanding praise nor pity from the reader. She writes with an admirable straightforwardness and honesty—traits that make her both likeable and believable.
Given that the topic she chose was so expansive, the writer does not directly take a long enough look at some of the turning points in her life, a key goal when writing application essays. As successful as the essay is, this is a pitfall to consider when dealing with such ambitious topics.
—Wendy Chang
