February 19, 2009
I’ve spent the last week doing taxes, and an assortment of financial aid forms, preparing for #1 Son to go away to college, next fall.
He is currently 1 for 3 on college acceptances. So far, we know he can be a Badger. But he is kind of hoping to be a Wolverine. I will admit, I got bigger laughs out of the college propaganda from U of Michigan than I did from U of Wisconsin.
Michigan sent an e-mail, touting early application, and assuring him that if he applied ‘Right Now’ there was a chance that he could come down to breakfast on Christmas Day and announce:
“I am a Wolverine.”
Of course you are, dear.
Guffaw.
In our family, it is unwise to announce anything like that on Christmas, or any other day, unless you want several hours of unrelenting grief.
Of course, when he hasn’t cut his hair in a while, he can pull it up into two tufts, and scowl like Hugh Jackman. Maybe he is a wolverine. I don’t know. Would it have helped the application process if we’d have taken a picture of that, and sent it to Michigan?
And our third candidate for new family mascot:
The beaver, aka the engineer of the animal world.
aka the brass rat of MIT.
If anyone from the admissions dept of MIT happens to read this blog, I’d like to take a moment to tell them that my son would be an excellent candidate for their school. He is smart, funny, rocks at physics and math, and will be able to adapt quickly to the rigorous academic schedule.
And his parents have learned to ignore the fact that he first got the idea of going to Cambridge because of the famous MIT alum Gordon Freeman.
The famous fictional alum.
From the game Half Life.
From what I hear, it’s a really good game.
It’s probably a lot better news than if he wanted to be like that guy from the show Fringe.
But not the crazy guy with the cow. You notice, he did not apply to Harvard. We have cows in Wisconsin, thank you. Right on the UW campus. But since MIT students are allowed to take classes at Harvard, he would be able to go visit that cow, if he got homesick.
Go MIT!
IMHO, a video game is a totally great reason to spend $50,000 a year on tuition.
Of course, we don’t actually have that kind of money. Nor enough to be a Wolverine. Or a Badger. Hence all the financial aid forms, which made me a little sick after considering the state of the economy, and our financial prospects for the coming year.
In case you haven’t noticed, the economy is in the dumper. There is a headline on MSNBC today that proves it.
“Shark attacks drop, ailing economy cited”
I don’t even want to read this article. No matter what they say, it is not going to be as good as I imagine. Perhaps sharks have decided to go meatless a few days a week, to cut down on grocery bills. Or maybe there has been a shark lay off. Maybe there is too much Prozac in the water, and they just don’t feel like biting.
If the small mammal applications don’t pan out, perhaps #1 Son can work on that. I’m sure, with a little American ingenuity, he can get shark attacks up to their former level. He’s a smart kid.
There was a hack involving a cow on the Great Dome of MIT, as I recall, but I’m afraid they took it down again. Still, MIT is a great place, and Cambridge is a fabulous city — almost as great as its neighbor Somerville, where I live 🙂
There was a hack involving a cow on the Great Dome of MIT, as I recall, but I’m afraid they took it down again. Still, MIT is a great place, and Cambridge is a fabulous city — almost as great as its neighbor Somerville, where I live 🙂