OMG
i am a very sad girl :( :( :( having been fully indoctrinated with the singaporean mania for freebies, i was delighted by the prospect of getting free mail from colleges and signed up for an irrationally large number of free information packets - think along the lines of infinity squared plus one. sadly, i have received like all of uhm FOUR packets in the mail so far, and only one of them is a college that i actually want to go to (i think the admissions officers may be trying to hint something here). and thatone college has supplemental essay questions evidently meant for those with IQs of 18764387563 and above only. just to illustrate my point (drive it in with a hammer, more like), read these and weep.
XXX College Supplement Essay Questions:
1) “The women’s movement or movements can no longer think about strategies for empowerment without appreciating the importance of the religious right, and the extent to which the agendas of the religious right intersect with those of feminists in peculiar and often unpredictable ways.”
Amrita Basu, Dominic J. Paino 1955 Professor of Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies at XXX College
2) “I like science-but only a little. What I love with all my heart is the universe. The world as revealed by science is far more beautiful, and far more interesting, than we had any right to expect. Science is valuable because of the view of the universe that it gives.”
George Greenstein, Sidney Dillon Professor of Astronomy, XXX College
3) “When we fear pluralism as the enemy, succumb to the allure of a seeming emotional unity or seek to enforce a meretricious purity of culture over rationalism and diversity, we turn cruel, whether or not we are conscious of it.”
From an Opening Convocation Address, September 6, 2004 by Anthony W. Marx, President, XXX College
4) “Krushchev’s mother instilled in him a sense of rectitude and responsibility, a conscience that carried with it the capacity for guilt and shame.”
From Krushchev: The Man and His Era by William C. Taubman, Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science, XXX College
5) “I’m not a machine. I feel and believe. I have opinions. Some of them are interesting. I could, if you’d let me, talk and talk....”
From Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Amherst Class of 1985, Roy Edward Disney Professor in Creative Writing, Another Rival College
6) “Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.”
From The Writer by Richard Wilbur, XXX Class of 1942, 1987 Poet Laureate of the United States
and these are just supplemental questions, mind you. KILL ME NOW. what kind of weirdos come up with these quotes anyway? they're full of sesquipedalia - that means 'big words', self-explanatory really :p anyway i am obviously not going to be headed towards college, and neither are you so i helpfully decided to think of some fruitful ways to spend our now-empty college years.
1) get a job at the SDU - helping all those single, desperate and ugly people to find soulmates will be really uh fulfilling, won't it? and maybe you'll even manage to pull a doctor hitch and find your 100% perfect guy/girl/thing while serving the nation by matching up potential baby producers!
2) get a job at the SPCA cleaning cages or something - helping all those single, desperate and ugly pets to find their doggie heaven owner will be really fulfilling and enriching too. PET ABANDONMENT IS A RISING TREND IN OUR SOCIETY. really. and hey, you never know, maybe the vet will be cute ;)
3) get a job at a primary school tuition centre for the academically challenged (read pre-adolescent delinquents) - at least you'll be more likely to go to college than them. ego trip benefits galore! also the opportunity to pursue some statutory-rape-type relationships with your students ala Mesdames Hannah Grice and Pamela Rogers Turner - aka the 'Sex Predators'. kinky. sadly, this also increases your chances of being beaten up and left to die in a dark deserted alley by some primary school gang or spending the next eternity behind jail bars:(
4)get a job as a cleaner at RJC. it'll give you the chance to soak in the academically superior atmosphere of the school that sends the most students overseas every year. warning: this doesn't mean you'll be going to college any time soon, buster, so don't get your hopes up. this also ups your chances of being thrown into jail for homicide - excusable really, when you're surrounded by such intellectually superior people every day. you'll probably get away with manslaughter or something given the extreme provocation.
and the list goes on... clearly life doesn't have to come to an end if you don't/can't go to college. there are still plenty of options left to you (with all the approximate appeal of a spell in a Nazi concentration camp), and some of them don't even involve jail!
but even so, i still think i'll go study now :(