College Essay # 7 - New York University

7.  It has been said [by Andy Warhol] that “in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” Describe your fifteen minutes. (New York University)

The famous fifteen minutes of fame. When I was little, I would always fantasize about being famous. Whenever someone asked me what I wanted to become when I was older, I always answered like this: “I want to become a doctor slash swimmer slash tennis player slash famous person.” My elders would look at me for a while and laugh at my answer.  I never understood why until later.  My peers would always ask me how I would be able to pull such a thing off.  They were as naive as I was, if not more. But I have to say; it was a rather foolish dream. I believe that Andy Warhol is right; everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes in the future. But the way you become famous can be either in a very elegant way or successful way like singing in a talent show and someone discovering your raw talent, or it can be in the way that I became famous … but clearly only for fifteen minutes.

I was a passionate swimmer when I was younger. My father had put me in the pull when I was able to walk. He taught me everything, and when he couldn’t because of his work, he made sure I was learning swimming at school. My afterschool activity was just that … swimming. Three times a week afterschool from the final bell of the day to around 5:30 in the evening. That doesn’t seem like much to us now, but I was 7 at that time. Our swim coaches had prepared us year around for the American International School of Dhaka’s Annual Swim Meet. It was fast approaching and we were practicing till the sun went down and all of us kids were as excited as the coaches. But when the day finally arrived, it wasn’t something that I had exactly planned out in my head.

I was getting ready for my 100 m freestyle dash. My parents were there giving me a pep talk, my coach was telling me to be calm and get prepared; the only thing I was doing was holding on to my swimming cap thinking that it would fall off from my seemingly expanding head. I don’t know why my head felt like that, but I thought that my head was going to blow off any second. As I got older, I realized that that was the thing that indicated that I was nervous. Strange, I know. 

The commentator called for all the swimmers to get ready. I was shaking and my head was pounding. I had worked so hard for this. The last thing I remember before reaching the finish line was the whistle blowing. After I finished the race, my coach told me that my swimming cap had fallen off. She was pointing at something that was 5 ft away from me but instead I thought that she was pointing all the way down to the other end of the pool. So, I swam slowly and steadily (I was tired) only to find out that it wasn’t there. When I got to the other end of the pool, one of the referees told me that the race was over. As if I didn’t know that. Embarrassed, I told her that I was looking for my swimming cap. She said it was nowhere to be seen on this side. So, in front of everyone, I returned back to base like a lonesome solider. I couldn’t find the cap anywhere. I told my coach I wasn’t able to find it. She looked at me, strangely, and told me that it was right there. I was looking where she was pointing, and I just couldn’t see what she was seeing. We were there for what felt like an hour, until one of my teammates came into the water and took the cap out. It was within reaching distance. The cap was just covered by the swimming lines. What an embarrassment.

For the rest of the races to go that day, everyone was teasing me and told me to keep my cap close to me otherwise, someone else would have to jump into the pool. For the rest of the day, I was known famously as the girl who continued swimming even after the race was finished. Technically, that wasn’t the case, but who cared about that as long as they got a good laugh out of it. That was my fifteen minutes of fame and maybe one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.