College Search

Hampshire supplement is eating my brain. They want so much. Five out of their seven questions could be essay topics in and of themselves. Grah. Clark wants a little, too, but it's not due for a while, since I'm applying regular decision.

Speaking of Clark, I'm going to visit tomorrow for an open house, and I'm leaving at FOUR IN THE MORNING. Shoot me now. At least we're just making it a day, and not staying over and the like.

I'm bringing a little backpack of stuff, and the contents are as follows:

• One notebook, for note-taking purposes
• My folder on Clark and the like
• A whole mess of pens and highlighters, for above purposes
• My self-made Hebrew dictionary (a notebook in which I write down Hebrew words in an effort to teach myself the language)
• My real Hebrew dictionary (as in the printed kind - - the pages are yellow, in case you were wondering)
• My Hebrew workbook from the ten minutes I was enrolled in the Independent Study class Freshman year
• My itty-bitty book of Psalms, which is retaking it's position of being taken with me everywhere
• If I can find my Tanach, it's going to be added as well
  

Because I am a dork.

Bubbles

One of my more vivid memories from first-year Ofarim (the unit entering sixth grade at Eisner) is blowing soap bubbles in the bathroom of the new Chadar (dining hall).

We would spend endless minutes after we were done with meals in the new bathroom, with its row of sinks and soap dispensers, along with loads of mirrors and lots of space. Dev and I had perfected the art of creating exactly the right consistency of lather for prime bubble-blowing, and we'd be able to create bubbles the size of our hands; the size of two hands, even. We learned our chemistry from observing the fact that a decently lathered hand, if using a slow, gentle approach, could poke at someone else's bubble without bursting it.

I was just taking a shower, and I completely zoned out and started trying to blow bubbles again. Either my soap was the wrong kind or I've lost the art.

Technology

Oh, bane of my existance.

My computer broke last year, and began making funny clicky noises at me whenever I tried to turn it on. Apparently that was the hard drive. My laptop has the summation of everything I've ever done from about 2004 until the time it broke last year, and I'd sort of like that back. We brought it to BestBuy's Geek Squad to try and retrieve things from it yesterday, and they said it'd cost about $160, so we bought an external hard drive and forked over the money.

Got a call a little while ago - the clicky noises were the hard drive, and that means that they can't do it there. They've got to send it out, and maybe the 'big' Geek Squad people can get it. The big guys have a 95% success rate, and it'd be just my luck for me to be in that 5%. Also, it's going to cost more than $160; it could cost anywhere between $250 and $1600. Holy shit, that's more than a new computer. All this for a few days of music, a whole mess of files, and my otherwise irritrievable collection of pictures from Israel and beyond. Dammit.

Whooshing again

It is surprisingly difficult to write about yourself endlessly. It shouldn't be all that hard to describe why "If not now, when?" would make a good school motto. For some reason, though, everything I'm writing sounds trite and forced, and I can't take it anymore.

Heart of Darkness is ridiculously thick and rambling.

Economic current events = Hit me over the head with a blunt object

I'm hungry, but I just ate. I don't feel like getting up, but I should really shower and get ready for the day. I hate sitting here, but I can't imagine going anywhere else. I sort of want to go work outside, but I want it to be summer weather.

I need to lose weight. I need to stop eating so much. I need to eat better, do my homework, get into college, and keep my room clean (I cleaned it yesterday, though, so that's one check off).

I kind of want to play EverQuest II again, but I don't have the money, the time, or a good enough computer to run it.

I'm discontent.

Rights

We all have a right to an education. In this country, that's expressed through government funded (which means taxed) public education.

I attended private school for my elementary years. I fell out of touch with a lot of the friends I made there, but through the wonders of modern technology ('the internet is really, really great...'), I recently reconnected to a friend from my early life.

This evening, we had a bit of a conversation about education. After complaining mutually about the terror that is senior year, we compared schools. She had stuck with the private school system, transferring to another private secondary school, while I had moved to public school in the fifth grade.

She mentioned an economics paper (and this is approaching where I intend to go with this post) in which she had to write about the fact that everyone has to pay for public school, presumably from the angle of the fact that it's 'not fair', especially to private school attendees.

I disagree heartily.

Public school is a right and a privilege that we enjoy in this country. The reason the system was created was to benefit those who could not afford if for themselves. The operation of the system, though no where near perfect, at least begins to allow for an equal access to equal schools, regardless of family income, because what everyone pays allows everyone to attend.

By opting to attend, and subsequently pay for, private school, you opt to default the right that you've been given to government funded schooling.

People choose private tutalege for any number of reasons, ranging from religious or personal beliefs, or a desire for a particular emphasis in educations. The ones who are really attempting to cheat the system, I think, are the ones who select a private school because they want a better education than the one offered in their public school district. By paying the extra to send a child to a private school that only the wealthier can afford, the family is cheating the less monetarily enabled families of the district out of a good education, in the long run, because families that send their children to private school typically vote to lower public school budgets, because it does not affect them directly. This lowers the quality of the schools, making more families send their children to private school, and perpetuating the cycle.

This cycle cheats some people of their rights: their rights to a full and equal education, regardless of race, gender, religion, nationality or national origin, ethnic background, or socioeconomic class.