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Applying

The following post is a rant. It reflects my emotionally charged opinions on serious topics. It will probably be funny to you, and it will probably be funny to me in a few decades, but it is serious to me now. So don’t laugh.

Started applying to the University of Florida a little while ago. I looked at a college application one time, and it didn’t seem to be that bad. This one has many of the same questions and it is bad. Bad, I say.

There are lots of very personal questions. I don’t know if I should put my race (it’s optional) because I don’t want to be discriminated against for being white. That is, I don’t want to be denied in favor of an equally good (or not as good) student who is of another race. Quotas! Let the best students get in. The main reason I say this is because my own future is at stake. If that means that I’m a selfish, heartless bastard, so be it.

I also have to put how much money my parents make. I don’t know the answer that question. I asked recently because it was asked (optionally) when I was signing up for the ACT. They wouldn’t say, so they must not make very much. CEOs who live on golf courses don’t shy away from the subject, after all.

The question that distresses me the most basically amounts to, “Have you ever gotten in trouble at school?” And if you have, you have to say so and describe it, unless it’s been expunged from your record. How am I supposed to know what’s on my record if I’ve never seen it? Unlike my perfect sister, I got three detentions in grade school, mostly for trivial things, and mostly when I was very young. The most trivial was for flicking a tiny ball of paper off my desk. That was in third grade. The teacher thought it could have poked an eye out or something, even though it just fell to the ground. Yes, I’m talking to you, Ms. Phyllis Martin. I swear it’s true. I got a detention for that. I shouldn’t have confessed to it because now it’s about to French Connection United Kingdom up my life. I’m more worried about the more serious ones, though. Those isolated incidents that took place long ago will shade colleges’ perception of how I will be in the future. Damn it!

I wanted to apply Early Admission or something like that, meaning that if they accepted me, they would let me know in December and I would be contractually obliged to go to their school. I like the knowing in December part, but I read the fine print, and you have to pay the first year’s tuition within 30 days of being notified of your acceptance. Seeing as the Bright Futures scholarship, which hopefully will get me all the way through college, only starts taking applications in December, I don’t know if I could do it. What the heck?!

Never mind that I haven’t written the essay(s) I need to submit. I need to write about how I’ll be a valuable asset to the school. I can’t do that today. I’ll do it on Friday. I guess I need to do some other stuff first, like figure out what the heck is up with this application. Advice, anyone? As in, my friends?

Why college? Why school in general? I know these problems may seem trivial, but they’re part of a bigger thing: why such a big hassle in order to make money? Why make money to be happy? Sometimes I wish I could just run away and live in the woods by a pond like Thoreau. Or maybe join a commune or something. You know.

In other news, if you haven’t heard about it already, Steve Irwin (the “Crocodile Hunter”) was killed today by a stingray. Hard to believe. He was only 44, and he had a wife and two kids.

Three years ago: “Oh well. I used to hum a lot too. And then I turned five.”