6.24.2005

How do you feel about Wednesday?

The other day, I was cleaning out my room for the umpteenth time. I'm such a pack rat. *sigh* At any rate, I was tossing out a ton of stuff I had gotten throughout high school from various colleges. Why did I have all that mail lying around anyway... I think it was something about wanting to see if I could top my dad's supposedly large collection, and wondering what colleges thought I was significant. Rather an ego boost, especially now when I've gone from a stand out high schooler to student number 12,308... its always nice to know that there were those fancy, exclusive colleges that sent me letters about how they believed I would fit right in with their outstanding student body and had a good shot at their impressive scholarships if I should decide to apply... I never felt the need to correct them on this point, their misguided faith was rather endearing...

My family recycles. This does fit in, really, I promise. My mom wanted me to sort through this massive collection in order to recycle it, instead of just tossing it in the trash. (Perhaps this will help debunk the myth that conservative Christians aren't out to destroy the environment, huh Micah? :D But that's off topic...) As I opened envelopes, tossing leaflets and prospectus (is that prospecti in plural, or prospectuses?) into the appropriate recycling piles, I came across one that intrigued me. It was from Macalester College in Minnesota. I remembered being interested in them when I first got their little booklet and such, since they marketed themselves as distinctly NOT Ivy League, represented by an illustration similar to:

ivy/not an ivy

(a bit nicer looking than that, obviously) and below the claim that Macalester College is "an excellent place to get an Ivy-caliber education." I casually glanced at their application, thinking to myself, could I really have gotten into a private school, where they actually make you fill something out that requires time, effort, and dare I say, actual talent? I've sometimes thought to myself, that perhaps high school was my pinnacle, and I'm declining into the twilight period of my life, or at least my academic career. Well, sometimes is perhaps inferring something more frequent than actually has occurred, perhaps it was only twice.

Irregardless of the previous frequency of these thoughts, the fact of the matter was that they returned, and with a vengance. I began to more closly examine the applications from the various schools, in an attempt to ascertain whether or not I am currently capable of putting together something at least semi-marketable. I soon ran across "the uncommon application" from the University of Chicago, and looked through the essay options for the infamous 1-2 page essay. One caught my eye, being so simple and open, yet intriguing. "How do you feel about Wednesday?" (they credited it as "inspired by Maximilian Pascual Ortega, a graduate of Maine Township High School South," which is, funnily enough, in Illinois) This question has been one I've begun to contemplate, but, as of yet, have not determined any solid answers. I think, in a future post... and I mean "future post" in the most vague sense possible, I shall attempt to answer this question. However, in the mean time, I shall leave it as a question to you, dear reader, if you really do exist. Feel free to leave an answer and satiate my curiosity!