Holli! It's excellent.

I love it.

I'm just wondering, I could be being stupid, but why

I blushed and stammered my way through the seventh grade, mortified that I was being taunted by people who often got better grades than me.

say they got better grades than you?

Looks good, Holli. A few things that I noticed:

Outside of Dr. Seuss, I hadn't read anything with real puns or wordplay before, and so was delighted by characters like the Whether Man (who tells you whether there’s going to be weather, and isn’t that the most important thing?), King Azaz of Dictionopolis, and Tock the watchdog.

Could be tightened up a bit, to maybe "Outside of Dr. Seuss, I hadn't read anything with real puns or wordplay, and so I was delighted by ... "

Before it, I hadn’t known you could just make things up like it did, or how much fun it was to do so.

The phrasing here is a little awkward, but I can't really see a good way to rephrase it. Maybe "Before I read it, I hadn't known that such fantastic situations could exist, or how much fun it was to imagine them." But that doesn't really sound quite right either, so I dunno.

I read Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” shortly after “The Phantom Tollbooth,” and it created, in addition to increasing my already strong love of fantasy and humor, the hope that I too could gain superpowers if I just read enough.

That "created" is too far from what it's referring to. "...shortly after "The Phantom Tollbooth, and in addition to increasing my already strong love of fantasy and humore, it created the hope that I too could ..."

Sadly, I still can’t lift SUVs with the sheer power of my thoughts, but there have been a few other benefits from a lifetime of bookwormishness.

I like the "lift SUVs" phrase. Maybe change "other" to "actual" or "real" or just leave it out entirely, since you didn't list any actual benefits yet for there to be an "other."

In middle school, I was embarrassed to be called a bookworm, and ashamed to be seen a brain.

You might was that to be "seen as a brain." Or maybe not, because that would mess up the nice parallel structure.

I’ve learned form their example

from

I’ve been known to answer questions about language in far too much detail-- after being subjected to a lengthy lecture on the origins of “uncanny,” all one friend could say was “Wow. You really are a geek.”

You might want to get rid of the beginning of this sentence; it works fine starting at "after."

I liked this. It's a good concept for a college essay, I think.

why say they got better grades than you?

Um. Good question. I guess the answer is that... it's true, even though it makes me look bad. Okay, that bit's gone.

If you really need to make it shorter, I think you can probably combine the penultimate paragraph with the one before it, and get rid of some stuff. I like both of those paragraphs, but that's the first place I see to take out stuff if it need to be shorter. You could even just go straight from "The movies and television I watch reflect that familiarity with the fantastic" to "it’s a lot more fun to analyze the narrative structure of “Farscape” or “Firefly” than it is to track the love lives of the “Dawson’s Creek” crowd" if you need to get the word count way down.

Holli, that was wonderful! (And oddly like one of my college essays, so it's probably not surprising that I like it.) Also, what Hil said.

Thanks, Theodosia! Now I really want to read your story, rather than write mine, even though, with the introduction of the evil TEMPtress, I finally have a conflict. [Editor's note: How many commas can I fit in a sentence?]

Holli, my only thought--aside from Hil's remarks on some sentence structures--was with the section about the paraplegic and the heartwarming lessons. We here understand the irony and sarcasm, but the people who read it may be the sorts who get teary eyed at such stories. Possibly something less specific like, "Hopefully you haven't put this down and turned your attention to the essay of the student council president who tells stories of all his generic good deeds." What you have is slightly on the catty side--funny as heck, but not everyone is as advanced as us.

Before it, I hadn’t known you could just make things up like it did, or >how much fun it was to do so.

My take on this sentence: "Before 'Toolbooth' (or just 'it' could work, I haven't checked to see if you've used the actual word Toolbooth right before this sentence or not), I hadn't known you could just make things up in a story, or how much fun it was to do so." It's a good sentence, reflecting the revelation of what true fiction is. The phrase "in a story" is optional.

Lord, I feel pedantic.

Has everybody seen Hugh Gallagher's college essay? My senior year English teacher read this to us to demonstrate parallel structure, and it's still one of the funnier things I've ever read. Especially "I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru."

I think I have a copy of that somewhere. I don't remember writing an essay to get into college. Maybe I didn't apply to anyplace that picky.

Yeah, I think that's been around the internet six thousand times.

Possibly something less specific like, "Hopefully you haven't put this down and turned your attention to the essay of the student council president who tells stories of all his generic good deeds."

That example sentence makes the speaker sound a little self-congratulatory to me. "But I'm not generic at all! Completely unique and original and shiny. That's me." I dunno.