An Immodest Proposal

Apathy and indolence are an especially passive combo. When these two traits are found together in a single person, especially one who is suffering from a severe case of senioritis, it can defeat even the most well-intentioned motivations. Basically, I don't feel like doing anything.

In a lot of ways, senior year has been kick ass awesome. I have great teachers, great classes, and a group of friends I am very lucky to have. But in many, many ways, senior year has been shitty like hell. I don't mean personally...but there has been a lot of anger and tragedy flying around me that I can't ignore. Hopefully, the latter half will pick up.

So before this post totally devolves into emo ranting, here is the real purpose this post: to somehow motivate myself out of wasting time online. During one of those time-sucking periods of internet surfing today, I found a thread of archived U Chicago essay prompts. (This has nothing to do with college, I swear.) The prompts were, as promised, uncommon. Uncommon in that the writing they inspire are not college-essay like at all. It struck me that these prompts were great for expository writing.

So in a typically masochistic decision, I have assigned myself to write one essay a week. Maybe essay is the wrong word; it'll really just a passage inspired by a prompt or answering the prompt. Partly, I feel guilty shirking the responsibility of writing a really U Chicago essay, which I must remedy to ever consider myself a legit Chicago student. Also, I need to start updating again, in less ranty and hopefully more interesting fashion. First course of action: resuscitating that Frankenstein essay...

Last Gasp on College Apps

My last, disjointed thoughts on the beast that has dominated my life over the last four years. I promise: after this, no more discussion of colleges until April.

The Caltech supp has boxes for AMC 10 and AMC 12 scores, as if they're required tests like SATs. Well, since is Caltech, they probably are required tests. Hehe, I can't believe there are people smart and hardcore enough to go there from our school. I think I sit in a bastion of genius, but then I walk into physics class and sense quite the opposite.

Rice Cinema actually sounds pretty snazzy (not quite Doc Films worthy but I didn't expect that), and the people at Rice seem so much more down to earth. They're actually believable students, not precocious teenagers all posing to be the next Nietzsche. I will steel myself for the possibility of spending the next four years of my life in Texas. If this really happens, I will laugh, laugh, laugh.

Yale is boring, elitist, and located in a ghetto. Their attitude on admissions is so condescending. I want my application fee back. *raspberry*

Despite the time I have spent disenchanting myself of U Chicago, I still think it has the coolest emblem. Their spiffy phoenix can rip apart the stuffy shields of the Ivies any day. Why don't they call their sports teams the Phoenixes rather than the boring Maroons? And pictures like these always make me <3 UChic again.


I'm actually pretty happy with all of my "match" schools, and am loathing/apathetic to all my reaches.

In other news, I'm eating a chocolate mint flavored candy cane. Need to ask Avanti where they bought the Asha lollipops because they're yummilicious.

New Year Resolutions

There are three hours left of this first day of 2007, and I am not spending them doing homework no matter how urgent the assignment. (Well, now that college apps are done, nothing really feels urgent.) So according to tradition, New Year resolutions in semi-relevant order. This is the first time I've done them in a while.

• Get to know more people.
• Get closer to my friends.
• Exercise once in a while. Exercising fingers on the keyboard does not count.
• Watch some fabo-awesome movies. Preferably in theatres.
• Be less lazy in everything.
  
• Do a thorough cleaning of my room, including all the spaces under my bed and in the closet that have not seen daylight in at least 6 years.
  
• Make a smart decision about college that I won't regret.
  
• Do some crazy things that I hopefully won't regret.
• Be more engaged.
  
• Get out of New England.
  
• Don't leave trash/dirty dishes around my house.
• Learn to use a sewing machine and make some clothes.
• Learn to knit and crochet.
• Learn to cook. (I feel a housewife trend.)
• Don't let any friendships wither away.
  
• Read all of the books I bought. (Sadly, this is an entire shelf.)
  
• Make sure my brother turns out okay.
  
• Get an official job.
• Do things I sincerely enjoy.
• Travel.
• Never go on collegeconfidential.com again.
  
• Get my writing up to speed.
• Eat like a girl and not a pig.
  
• Seek passion.
  

I'm going to have to be extra efficient and motivated to get all that stuff done. But, I don't want to start this year on a negative note, so no self-doubting allowed.

This year's holidays did not feel holidayish at all. I feel no festive spirit endowing me with glee. No annual spirit of renewal. Not even relief that my college apps are done. I almost feel kind of numb. Hmm, okay, no negativity right? I'm going to sleep now. Five hours earlier than I have in the past week.

Let's Do Some Math

me + frictionless surface + $150 = sprained knee + ski voucher

movies + indian food + friends = very happy me + 15 lbs of fat

4 x ($48,205 - 3500 + (3500 + interest)) = total debt of small Pacific island = my college debt

2 essays + 10 short answers = college app work remaining

8:30 AM - 5:30 AM = total hours of sleep last night

my brother + my mom = tantrums + yelling + burst ear drums

Teenage Angst. Gah.

Okay, I resign myself to getting nothing done this weekend. There has just been too much drama and trauma that I cannot concentrate on anything. I'm going to keep writing because even sucky writing is therapeutic. Basically, the whole spam debacle is the dumbest thing that has ever happened to me in my life, and I've done enough dumb things for 20 lives. I can't believe that 15 of us high school seniors had to go through this melodrama that belongs way back in junior high. What the hell. This didn't even happen in junior high; it's like we've devolved and become even less mature.

Although I spent all of last night trying to be fair and balanced in what I said/did, I had some really unfair and unbalanced thoughts in my head. I know that we all bear some responsibility for the eventual result, but I do feel inclined to blame some people more than others. Maybe this feeling is really petty--it is--and that's partly why I feel so upset right now. I'm really ashamed that I too stooped so low in this whole inclusion/exclusion mess. I guess it's the Woody Allen joke right? "I only want to in a club that doesn't want me in it." I started feeling this way as soon as we started adding people to spam, so it's not like anything new. Last night probably just reached a critical mass of stress and the whole thing blew up in our faces. I wish we had been more discrete about the spam thing and didn't rub in everyone's faces. Fuck. Why are we so immature? I really hope that we can move beyond this disaster and that there isn't any permanent damage done in our friendships.

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I am have more icky feelings to write about. Today is just an icky day; I'm hoping tomorrow will turn around. The thing I feel really icky over is when people are nice to me. Maybe this is more to do with a specific person, but I always feel this person is nice to me because they expect something out of me in return. I just feel kind of used. I don't know. Chances are, if you're reading this I am not talking about you. This has absolutely nothing to do with my group of friends. Color me cynical, but better safe than sorry.

I might be putting this blog on protect sometime soon because I'm dispensing my review log URL to some people I would be mortified if they read this blog. I know I sound so petty and emo and spastic here, since I only update when I'm one of those things. If you still care about reading, just drop me an email. Even if you're some complete stranger that's okay. You just better not have my college-related fate in your hands.