College Motivation Letter... MountainHiker, you still on here?

0 Hi all!02br
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00I have written this to the best of my ability. I'm pretty secure about the language part, as I'm bilingual, but it's the culture part that I want to check works. Some stuff I need to put in there, like the reason for the GPA - it's part letter, part appeal. But, this is my question, does it come off as too smarmy, too corny, too vague, disorganized, paragraphs need switching around? I just really liked what Hiker said to some other people n here - I have tried to follow the question checklists s/he posted02br
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00"(Introduction (very quick points) 02br
001a) Who you are 02br
001b) What you want to do 02br
001c) Why do you want to do it 02br
001d) What do you want from them 02br
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002) Detailed background 02br
002a) Expand on who you are 02br
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003) Detailed background 02br
003a) Expand on what you want to do and why you want to do it 02br
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004) Summary 02br
004a) Summarize what you have told them 02br
004b) Thank them for considering your application" 02br
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00and the list for another poster02br
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00"1) You have a Communication Science degree 02br
002) You want to obtain a Masters Degree in European Comparative Public Policy 02br
003) You want to study at University of Essex 02br
004) You have a passion for European Comparative Public Policy 02br
005) You want to do what or influence what once you are done?"02br
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00This is an online... ookay, off to edit 01b00edits* *returns02b00 ...online college offering a Liberal Arts MA. Fort Hays State University.02br
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00And this is my letter:02br
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00As an immigrant from Egypt with a BA in English literature, including comparative and cultural studies, a background in consciousness-raising work and gender activism, and a lifelong dream of a career conveying these concepts to others and inspiring them to make a difference, I respectfully seek acceptance at your Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program.02br
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00Culture, critical thinking, history, and social analysis have been the most important fields of study (formal and otherwise) in my life for as long as I can remember. My mission since graduation has been to analyze and question accepted ways of doing things, including sexuality, the monolithic nature of official discourse, and the mainstreaming of the Arabic language and Islam while eroding indigenous tongues and other religions in my native Egypt. As an aficionado of historical narrative, especially that of my native region, the Middle East, and a keen observer of the unseen social currents of religious and gender politics, and cultural norms, mores and values, I have devoted myself to exploring what lies beneath the surface and is visible through the 'iceberg' model of culture. To this end, I have read over 150 books on history, culture, religion, politics and sexuality, among others, mostly about Arab culture. I already am teaching Middle Eastern culture and history at a small language school. The reaction I have received has made me eager to become qualified for a better teaching position in the field of culture/comparative studies. There is so much work to be done in this area to make people truly aware! However, I sense that before being qualified to do this, I am in need of a more thorough academic grounding in epistemology, anthropology and the science of critical thinking skills, as well as in the broader areas of culture and human knowledge, including cross-disciplinary studies and research on cultures outside the mainstream. I am confident that these fields are jut what I need to formalize the learning imparted by my sometimes tumultuous social-political personal experience.02br
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00While the English Department of Cairo University, where I earned my BA, was a liberal oasis (my majors included Comparative Literature, Civilization and feminist criticism), I later found many of my fellow-Arabs were resistant to a liberal outlook. At that time, the newspapers were abuzz with news of the 'Satanist cult': trumped-up charges (later dismissed by judges as a total fabrication) brought by powerful police officials against American University boys and girls, arrested for wearing black and listening to heavy metal, tortured into confessing crimes they never committed. I became more and more frustrated as people kept telling me, "The newspapers say it; it must be true." For these people, the appearance of difference, and condemnation by the mainstream media, was enough to condemn these unfortunate young people whose only crime had been to assert some individuality and deviate from social norms. 02br
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00The issue became even more complicated and interesting when a number of Europeans I worked with, in a well-intentioned quest for 'cultural sensitivity', ended up with a prescriptive and restrictive definition of Middle Eastern culture: "No, no, boys shouldn't take Home Economics classes. We understand your culture." I preferred to view norms, mores, and values as separate entities and not succumb to the Orientalist view that, lumped together, unchanging and unchangeable, they constituted a monolithic 'culture'. Some of the other questions I asked myself were: What is collective memory? Can one find a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, model of culture? How far does respect for difference erode the rights of the dissenting individual in a collective culture? These are questions whose answers I hope to seek in your program.02br
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00In 2001, my interest in sexual/religious difference took on a more overtly political nature with the Queen Boat case, where 52 gay men were arrested on trumped-up charges of, yes, Satanism. Unable to stand it any longer, I started a campaign to pressure legal organizations to give them representation in court ("But they're fags! Why represent them?") and alert international human rights organizations to the issue. This had some success; however, it became clear that I was next in line for arrest, and finally I sought political asylum in the U.S. Since coming here, I have studied cinema (earning an associate degree with a 3.8 GPA) made a film on the subject, and am currently preparing a documentary on the veil.02br
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00In addition to your academic program, which seems to offer a roadmap to the answers for many of my questions, your university is ideal for me in that you offer a course to be taken completely online. This is beyond convenient for me, as I am busy with work and have found that commuting time cuts into my study hours; I would also find it impossible to relocate to Kansas at this time. Also, in an age where education can be, literally, a forbidding expense, my gratitude knows no bounds for your efforts to provide a quality education at a price I can actually afford.02br
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00I feel it is pertinent here to mention that, just before the exams of my last year at university, I was among a group of students who were holding a peaceful demonstration against the interference of the secret police in student affairs, including sabotaging student union elections. The secret police pelted us with tear gas grenades and rubber bullets; I was unlucky, and had to be carried out of the university with a broken nose and upper respiratory inflammation. When exam time came round, I was not yet recovered (Egyptian universities base the entire grade on one final exam, not on coursework) but made an effort to come to exams and ultimately managed to pass all my tests. However, while my GPA in previous years was significantly higher, as you can see from my transcript, I was unable to make the minimum 2.5 GPA required for the last 60 hours of undergraduate study. This rather lengthy and tedious explanation precedes, as you may be expecting, an urgent and very heartfelt plea that you not allow this unfortunate occurrence to stand in the way of my chances for learning and the ultimate fulfillment of my life's dream. 02br
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00Thank you for taking the time to read this. Your university represents a dream to me, not least thanks to the convenience and cost, which means that the dream is finally within my grasp. It is my dearest hope to become a student at the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, thereby gaining an invaluable academic grounding and ideological framework and positively influencing others thereby. If accepted, I pledge to apply myself to my studies diligently, and never give you cause to doubt the wisdom if your decision.02br
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00Allow me to thank you, again, for considering my application.02br
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00Yours sincerely0-