Changes

:My response to [[w:Harvey Mudd College|Harvey Mudd College]]'s essay prompt: ''Tell us about yourself. We know which activities you do and what your academic record looks like, but what don't we know? What fun, cool or interesting things about you won't fit into the categories on the application? Feel welcome to be clever or funny, or write in a way that reflects your personality.''

During the ride itself, I would always look out the window to watch the passing countryside. However, I would also watch the rails running alongside the train. Sometimes, there would be switches and the tracks would branch off; there would be a depot, perhaps a yard, or just a sidetrack with an idling locomotive, waiting for its next assignment. As the train passed by, I tried to follow the split-offs as far as I could see them. Sometimes, I would see long freight trains, and wonder about what they were carrying and where they were going. There was a platform, which was the future site of a railway museum; as numerous railway cars were retired to this site, I remember wanting to make the train go slower so that I could marvel at all of the different train cars standing on the side. Often, I would spend my summers in [[w:Crimea|Crimea]], before I moved to the US in 1996; the trip involved numerous trains. Looking out the window, I would love when an opposing train rushed by at such a fast speed that it was just a blur, and the pitch of its whistle went down as it passed. Ten years later, I have only a few memories of these trips, and most of them involve trains or train stations that we stopped at and not the countryside through which we traveled.