oh my fucking god are you serious?

$44 MILLION for education research and the "next big idea" they're testing is if giving students CASH or CELL PHONE MINUTES for improving their scores on STANDARDIZED TESTS ( Read more... )

so i think i am in love with obama's k-12 education plan, and i'm only on like the third paragraph. the (snarky) first sentence about assessment--"Obama believes we should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests"--is already a winner for me, but this is what really made me swoon (emphasis ( Read more... )

essay four (optional) [paraphrasing]: tell us anything else about yourself that you think we should know.

( possible stuff to talk about )

working on my essays (before noon!). posting here because, well, it's my journal, isn't it?

essay three: describe an experience from which you have derived exceptional benefit and explain its importance to you.

my experience: the 2004 presidential election.

( so why was the election important to me? )

so if you dear readers don't know by now, despite my repeated attempts over the course of the last (several years actually, but most recently) few months i've not yet managed to finish that damned application to st. john's college. but i decided to stay home from the cooley family reunion this year (for the second time in my life) to give myself ( Read more... )

our everyday notions of "subjectivity" and "objectivity" (i.e., our misappropriation of "science") often lead us to think we get closer to the truth by placing more distance between ourselves and that about which we are trying to discern the truth. case in point: common methods of academic evaluation. out of a (usually whole-heartedly sincere) ( Read more... )

1) everything is a) worth thinking about and b) utterly baffling ((at least) at first). (these are related.)

2) i actually want to work. to write. to think. you might suppose said desire would be not only a necessary but also a sufficient condition for my getting work done. you would be wrong ( Read more... )

is it unforgivably pretentious to quote hamlet in an application essay? i swear i wasn't trying to be clever or ironic; it just made sense. though sometimes my rhetoric does get carried away with itself. caution self: watch out for that rhetoric. syle isn't everything.

anyway...

march 12-18:
-- fucking finish my application to st. john's.
---- ( Read more... )

march 9-11:
-- fucking finish my application to st. john's. march 9: wrote three and a half pages. just two (or three) and a half essays to go! and that's actually good news.

i seriously rule.

the cleaning/rearranging project is practically complete! in fact i am so so pleased with it that i just have to share it with all you fine people. i didn't think to take "before" pictures until i'd already moved the computer, but you really didn't want to see the room before anyway. trust me.

( pictures )