The Septimus Notes

Sunday, May 29, 2005

|So that's what it takes?!|

Friday I went into work and talked to my co-worker who had managed to get a Fee Waiver from LSAC. I wanted to know that, with what information I had about her, how she could get a fee waiver and I couldn't.

My information was both incomplete and inaccurate.

She is not an only child, but has two younger siblings. As well, I knew, but had forgotten that her mother had passed away not too long ago.

Moreover, at the time that she applied to LSAC for a fee waiver, she had been studying in Paris for the whole school year, and so while normally she would have had an income, for that particular fiscal tax year, she had no income. As well, shortly before she returned to the states (and prompting an early return) there was a massive, industrial fire in her father's jewelry store. Everything was burned -- including her father. He's alive now and doing comparitively well, but he was burned over 80% of his body and was in a coma for five months.

Her father, something of a paranoid conspiracy theorist type (at least that's what I get from her) maintained meticulous records of everything: tax forms, will, etc. in a fireproof safe (the only copies, in fact). But the night of the fire, wouldn't you know it, he had left the safe door open. There was a massive legal quagmire because my co-worker could not get access to anything because she did not have power of attorney over her father and he was in a coma and thus could not grant it to her or anyone else. They managed to convince the courts to grant over "custody" over her siblings, and relied on the help of relatives and family friends until her father woke up.

So, she managed to get an LSAC fee waiver because:

1) She had no income for a year
2) Had $400 in the bank
3) Had to "dependent" children
4) A dead mother
5) A father in a coma

Yeah, I really cannot compete with that.

And, as far as my co-worker, things are good now. And things were mostly good up until that clusterfuck of badness that was her summer last year.

But, really, is that what it takes to get a fee waiver?

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 18:11.
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Friday, May 27, 2005

|Are you fucking kidding me?|

After the hell that I went through with the Law School Admissions Council to get them to *let* me apply for a fee waiver and getting a letter from my school and paying more than I should have to rush it to them, I was denied. I was denied a fee waiver. Why? Because I make too much money.

I MAKE TOO MUCH MONEY?

In the year in question I worked at a grocery store. A grocery store. Now I'm at Columbia, without the aid of my parents. I mean, how little do I have to make for them to realize that I'm poor?

I mean, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

So now I have to fucking write an additional letter and send everything back to them with the new letter requesting to appeal their dumbass decision. Goddammit. And I might not consider appealing, save for a girl I just met at work told me that she got the fee waivers when she applied last year, and she has two parents who own their own business plus works herself and is an only child so I can't possibly imagine that they make less than I do. Her income alone would have to be comparable since she's here in Manhattan. Even if they have bills to pay, she's the only child they have in school and she's also working.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 09:47.
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Sunday, May 22, 2005

|Frustrated Rant.|

Here's is the text of the email that I fired off to Josh right after getting off of the phone with B:

Yeah, I got out after 11. You hadn't called me, and I just didn't feel like trucking all the way down to the LES since I had to be up early this morning to move all of my shit before going in to work.

Speaking of moving, so B and I officially broke up over brunch yesterday. On the breaking up, I was of the mind to try and give it another shot since it's the summer and all, especially knowing that it wouldn't last beyond the end of the summer. That doesn't work for him. He said "My gut feeling is that we should make a clean break now." I said, "Okay." And he said, "Oh."

Anyway, he offered to help me move this morning. I said that I didn't think I'd need his help, but because of a super annoying quirk with the building I'm moving into and bad-timing with the housing staff, I realized that I would need his help. So, I emailed him. He called me this morning to say that he could help me. But in classic B fashion, he could only do it if the moving met certain conditions. He could only spare time by coming to my dorm after I've loaded everything up and helping me. But as I explained to him, I want to do it in one trip so I need two bins and so he has to check out one of the bins with me. If he did that, came with me home where everything would already be ready to load up and then moved out, the whole thing should take only an hour. But he wants to argue the uselessness of only being able to take out one bin/student. I explain to him that 1) I don't make the rules and 2) If they allowed every student to take out more than one bin at a time knowing that there are fewer bins than students, that would make moving, on the whole, a bitch of a process for everyone since most people need more than one moving bin to move in one trip. So he's like, "Then can't I come with you to sign out the bin, and then go home and you call me so I don't have to waste time on loading stuff up which always takes a while?" (That isn't quite what he said, but more-or-less the gist). And I explain to him that he could do that, only then 1) I'd have to move to unwieldy bins the downhill distance to my current dorm and 2) by the time he would get home, because I would have (hopefully) organized everything properly, he'd only be home for about 20min before I call him again (maybe less since I'd call him before I was done so that he would arrive when I was done) and since he has a tendency to not arrive on time that would actually make the whole process take more than an hour which would defeat the point of his coming to *help* me in the first place.

So basically I told him nevermind, and that I wouldn't need his help because his help would be very unhelpful. Just like B, he'll only do what he wants the way he wants it. And why can't he spare an hour on a Sunday morning after school has ended? Oh, because the 30pp paper that he had all semester to work on that was due at the end of term that he managed to get two (yes, TWO) extensions on is due Monday and he hasn't managed to type a single word. Because, horror of horrors, he's been having sex, which has provided an additional distraction to the host of distractions that seems to prevent him from being able to get work done efficiently and in a timely manner.

And I have to wonder why I thought that maybe we could manage to date until the end of the summer.

That's about the end of the email to Josh. I made some modifications (i.e. Josh knows B's real name). In B's defense, I understand that he needs to get this paper done and his grade rests on it. But, really, at this point I cannot honestly believe that taking an hour to help me will be his downfall. And it's perhaps that disjunction of belief (because clearly he does believe that) is why he was right in following his gut feeling.

That is about 3 boyfriends in almost exactly a year, up from 0 in 22... interesting.

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 10:24.
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Saturday, May 21, 2005

|By comparison.|

So, Dr. Faustus is publishing a book... a book of gaie haiku entitled, "Gay Haiku." He spells it differently. And there is a book reading in Chelsea. And despite that odious location I will definitely be making a cameo appearance.

To quote Samantha, "It's so fabulous, it makes me fabulous."

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 18:27.
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Tuesday, May 17, 2005

|About that last post.|

The last grade just came in. Apparently I did get "more." I received the elusive "A+" (elusive even for a school with a reputation for grade inflation), and it really bumped my term GPA up a couple of notches into the "Sweet" zone. And I would guess that now, neither Yale nor Columbia nor UPenn has a reason to reject me in the fall (beyond the simple nature of Russian Roulette that is college admissions).

Oh, it's an exciting time (for me) to be alive, isn't it?

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 09:54.
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Monday, May 16, 2005

|Bittersweet Success.|

I've reached the end of the academic year.

I had two aims this year: 1) To get into the Reid Hall Program to study in Paris during my senior year and 2) To get my cumulative GPA from 2.634 to above a 3.0.

I learned a lot this year. I learned that I can do and achieve almost whatever I apply my mind and body to, so long as I apply my mind and body to it. I also learned that even slight weakness in either vein multiplies the possibility of failure ten-fold. Getting close enough to what I wanted, close enough to lick the salty sweet skin of success, I came to want more.

And now, at the end of this year, looking back, I realize I did not get "more." I did not work as hard or as long as I could have. At the same time, maybe I did. My reach may be longer than my grasp. My eyes may be wider than my mouth. [Insert other metaphors that imply I cannot do as much as I'd like]. And now, I have the summer ahead of me. I plan to take dance classes and read Murakami and see Elizabeth Taylor on the big screen in the park. But I also need to work, and, having already started, I am too tired to even read at night and I can already feel the summer slipping through my fingers.

Yet, mission accomplished: my cumulative GPA reached 3.004 and in a few months I will find myself reading Proust on the rue de Montparnasse.

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 09:32.
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Wednesday, May 11, 2005

|You know, it was invented in America.|

Lucky-sons-of-bitches.

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 05:28.
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Tuesday, May 10, 2005

|Super.|

What's super? Getting up bright and early for your Stats/Methods final. Having a healthy bowl of cereal, with sliced bananas with some peanut butter on toast on the side, and a full glass of OJ. Finishing the OJ, turning on NPR and then doing a little extra bit of review. Going to your computer and making sure you know the location of the exam because heaven forbid you go to the wrong class in the wrong building or something horrible like that.

What's not super? Checking the classroom for your test and coincidentally checking the time for your test and realizing that it started three minutes ago.

However, I did finish in just a little over an hour, only minutes after the super smart guy finished. Which suggests that had I arrived on time, I might have been the first to leave.

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 11:13.
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Wednesday, May 04, 2005

|Of Law Schools and (Wo)Men.|

I just ran into my good friend Erin. Besides being one of my few friends on campus, she's one of my even fewer black friends on campus. She's singularly beautiful, singularly brilliant and singularly under-esteemed. Her lack of self-esteem doesn't really make sense. Her parents are great, loving people. Their love is only outpaced by the size of their wallets. She's extremely intelligent, very nice, and very very attractive. But she doesn't believe in herself.

Point: She thought she would bomb the LSATs. In fact, according to her, she did. She thought she would not get into any law schools. And, in her defense, she didn't get into many (she applied to a very large number), but was waitlisted.

But today, when I ran into her, and said, "So what are you doing?" "Oh, going to the Stend to close out my tab." She was a cheerleader = she enjoys the sauce. I say, "No, that's not what I meant." "Oh, you mean in life? Well, I got into Yale, but I don't really want to go there, so I deferred."

At that point I promptly did a triple-take. "I got into Yale, but I don't really want to go there, so I deferred." That's verging on blasphemy.

The problem with Yale is that no one wants to go to New Haven, but if you go to Yale you can go anywhere after that. I may not even apply, because if by some miracle I got in, I would have no idea where to go. Do you spend three years at the top school of the top schools and then spend the rest of your life revelling in your own good fortune, or do you go to a school that you will actually enjoy for three years, even if it may be followed by instability thereafter?

Maybe I'll apply and not get in. Keep your fingers crossed.

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 13:16.
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Monday, May 02, 2005

|Pretty as a (Viewbook) Picture.|

Do you remember your college's viewbook? Well, firstly, do you remember the deluge of viewbooks that started pouring into your home right around the end of junior year in High School? The better you did on your SAT's, the more viewbooks you probably received. From Occidental University to Juniata College to Harvard. Everyone glossy, typically with pictures of foliage in Fall-color transition, usually at least one time-lapsed photo so lots of students all out of focus at various times in the day captured in the same photograph at the nexus of intracampus commute and commune.

I remember my four favorite viewbooks: Columbia (imagine that), Vassar, Harvard, and UPenn. I remember the Vassar viewbook had a photo of a gloriously vivid stained glass window in one of their libraries and a photo of students sitting in the blossoming Shakespeare Garden. The UPenn viewbooks gets snaps for a nice binding -- it was a heavy-stock, creamy off-white, beveled paper with a seal embossed on the cover in navy blue. The Harvard viewbook listed the upper class housing options and I fell in love with this one house that I think was on the Charles River (I could be entirely wrong about that) which had it's own dance studio -- at the time I was still very gung-ho about tap dancing and hated that I had no place to just go and let my feet fly when the mood struck. And then there was Columbia's viewbook... Columbia has yet to produce another one as great. Most of the images were time-lapsed, because Columbia is in the City and the city is fast. At the end, there was a compilation of quick facts (what other speed could they be?) about New York, New York City, Columbia and its students. I love quick facts! And then, one image... the one that convinced me to apply. It was in the upper-right hand corner of a page... small, as if it was just thrown in at the last minute because they'd paid for it to be taken and someone thought it ought to be used: a bird's-eye-view of the campus, probably not long after they'd replaced all the grass (as they do annually). So, in this square of grey city concrete, was a striking strip of green. Imagine it... this green blemish on a greyscape... was a university. How could I not apply?

The other image that is a staple component of any viewbook is that of the "class in the professor's home" image. It's usually very softly lit, with lots of warm colors. There are lots of books around, typically a fireplace or hearth of some sort, and lots of wood. Lots of wood. I found myself in this picture today. My CC professor, for the end of term, had us over for an early supper for our last class. The fact that we were discussing Amartya Sen and famine aside, the catered meal was a nice was to cap off a very plentiful semester. The scene looked familiar: the view of the park and the river outside of her window, the Dutch-looking portrait of a philosopher on the wall of the dining room, all of the students crowded around a simply-appointed coffee table. But it didn't hit me until she struck her "professor in her own habitat" pose, another essential component to the photograph. While speaking, while gesticulating, while cultivating young and agile minds, a professor, a good professor, knows to run the gamut of professor poses, and mine is not lacking in her artillery. The particular pose I'm talking about is seated, slightly hunched forward, one arm to the side (but not relaxed -- never relaxed) and the other arm extended in the air, with hand clutching. Although, no, not clutching... not grasping... but grasping for. Sort of lightly feeling... of course, there is nothing in the hand... what is being felt for is hardly tangible... it's knowledge. The professor isn't trying to feel knowledge, but to get a feel for knowledge. In making this gesture, in saying her words, there is also the subliminal message: "Learn to learn. Seek to know. Understand, but do not manipulate."

It was when Prof. P struck that pose and by which completed the image that I realized where I was. And, maybe for the first time, I felt like I was in college.

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 20:06.
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Sunday, May 01, 2005

|Babies, no longer just objet d'art.|

Last night me and various and sundry members of my gang had dinner in Brooklyn. For the first time, we were able to meet the baby that's now the center of attention (!). Well, I know it was my first time. Clearly it wasn't Josh's sister's first time. In any case, the conversation around and about this newborn was so much more fun than other newborn conversations I've been privy to. I think it's the youth of the group. He's a brief rundown of jokes and jabs and such of the evening:

1. The only way to get close enough to a five year old to rape it is if you're wearing a clown suit.

2. Satan might be trying to fill you up with (smelly) baby poo.

3. Suddent Infant Death Syndrome doesn't quite sound right, given that it's sudden infant death. Chris noted that's it's really more of a phenomenon. So, to that effect: SIDP. Suddent Infant Death Phenomenon. The 'P' is silent, much like the baby would be.

4. Lezabelle.

5. The BLACKEST name of a girl born last year in California (officially termed a "super black" name) was Ebony.

6. The WHITEST? Molly.

7. Yes, in fact, all passing of gas can be blamed on the baby.

8. NYPoo.

Fin.

promulgated by SWS2.1 at 11:02.
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