on the importance of college

i want to go to a good college.

but i ask myself why. what does it matter? recognition? education? or maybe i am no better than franny and i just need that pat on the back that tells me i am smart. i hate to think that i am like that but i guess i am. i guess we all are. why else would we care? there is obviously more resepct if you tell someone you are going to, say, harvard (which is, by the way, way overrated), not rutgers. but beyond impressing your friends in high school and family, who really cares? undergraduate school does not matter. as long as you do well, you will likely be able to get into any graduate school you want. grad schools dont care where you went, they care how well you did. and even beyond that, i wonder if employers care where someone went to grad school. there are only so many people that earned their degrees from ivies or other elite schools, and i doubt that all respectable workers went to there. my dad, for example, went to upenn undergrad but stopped there to continue the highly respectable family business of silkscreening clothing, making varsity jackets, etc. out of nowhere he decided that the job sucked (duh) and he got his masters from seton hall. and now he works at ny presbyterian hospital, the university hospital of columbia and cornell. is seton hall impressive? not at all. but it didnt really matter. as long as the degree is there, no one really cares where you went.

which brings me back to where i started, contemplating if i really want to go to a prestigious school. i guess the answer is no. but at the same time i know that i will be very upset with myself if i go to rutgers, tcnj, penn state, and so forth. maybe i just want what i feel i deserve. i have worked (kind of) hard to get where i am and i hope it can take me to USC (as i have given up on stanford). but if not, as i have concluded, it doesnt exactly matter. i will still go to dental school and become the splendid prosthodontist i have always wanted to be.

unless, of course, i major in art history and curate at the met...

dave

dave poppy makes me mad.
and thats all i have to say.

[edito!]

so why does dave poppy make me mad? he participates in the politics of high school sports. let me begin by explaining my softball background. i have played on select club teams since fourth grade. i have gone to nationals every year. i am currently playing on one of the best teams in the state. i am on college watch lists. in short, i deserve to start varsity. but i dont. the girl who catches is a senior and while she is pretty good, she just isnt great. but our wonderful varsity pitcher will only pitch to her. no joke. when i have to catch for her she refuses to pitch anything i call. but dave is okay with this. he lets his varsity pitcher dictate everything the team does. why? her family owns the isp. if she doesnt get what she wants, we dont get isp for free. so dave goes along with whatever she says.

dave poppy is also intimidated by freshmen parents. a very powerful parent in the softball community told him that if he didnt put his daughter and her friend on varsity, they would leave the program forever. these are two rather good athletes, but not yet at the varsity level, so losing them would be pretty bad. long story short, one of the freshman, who is also a catcher, gets more varsity time than me. i am better than her. i know i sound ridiculously egotistical but its true. i get stuck on jv and occasionally go to a varsity game to sit the bench and be there in case like 4 people get hurt. reasonable? i think not.

nearly any high school athlete can tell you that theyve experienced something like this. i really dont understand what makes coaches do what they do. athletics at the varsity level are based not just on skill but attitude. if people like myself keep getting held back, our attitudes wont be very swell.

so, dave poppy, please stop buying into high school sport politics. as horrible a person as you are, please try to find it in you to understand that i want to know where i stand. you tell me i have the best blocking and arm strength out of all the catchers but i still play jv. i love the jv girls, we actually have fun, but i deserve better. but dave, maybe being with you wouldnt be better after all.

the nahs application

i am applying to the national art honor society. it saddens me to see just how many people picked up an application. to better understand why it makes me upset, you should first know why i am applying. [hippie: on] art is anything that is made to be beautiful. it is not always a lovely little pink coil pot, a vermeer portrait, a degas ballerina study. art is crude. art is whatever anyone wants it to be as long as they find it beautiful. this whole notion of "that red on canvas isnt art because i could have done that" bothers me. yes, you could have done it. but you didnt. the artist did what no one else did, even if it was obvious and easy, because to them it exemplified beauty. i want to be a member of the national art honor society so that i can share my knowledge and opinions of classic and contemporary art with the world i hopes of spreading what we art freaks like to call "art awareness." i want to help the world see the art in the everyday, the mundane details that are truly beautiful. [hippie: off] so what is making me so upset? people who do not care about any of this applying. why? it looks quite good when listed as an extracurricular. it shows commitment, even if the commitment is not there. the only thing worse than applying for namesake is those who apply because they "like art." i am thinking of one person in particular but i know that there are many. she takes ceramics and painting and does well in both classes because she does not take the true artistic approach. she does not do something that has never been done before because she thinks it is beautiful. she does what others have deemed as beautiful and makes facsimiles of the works. and yet she is applying. she will put together a lovely portfolio and have her mother write her a lovely essay on the artist's place in today's world. her mother will write it because this girl cannot say the artist's place because she does not know what it is to be an artist. she knows what it is to be a student in an art class.

i hope someone understands what i mean.

just because

buh-lawg? why yes it is, and it does indeed belong to dana lynn.

so what has tempted to me to construct this window into my mind? boredom. lack of instant messenger. a need to feel recognized.

anyhoo, lots of random stuff will come. sometimes ill be emo, sometimes philosophical, sometimes simply dana lynn.

feel free to invade my life.