Pointless Rant on the Sad and Sorry Saga of Yale and Lack of Productivity

This summer I have been attending the Yale “EXPLO” program. It is decent. However, I feel a staunch lack of intellectualism, considering it is YALE UNIVERSITY; one of the top five universities in the country! Granted, my expectations may have been too high, but still, at a hub of intellectualism, all people want to do is go to Starbucks or Au Bon Pain and get coffee, and then go to sleep. Granted, I do not speak for everyone, but an overwhelming majority of people do not share the same desire for intellectual “exploration” that I do, and it is distressing. Take this example. The choices for structured activities were, among others, Discussion on Nationalism, Smoothies, or Water Balloon Capture the Flag. Which two do you think were he most popular. I went to the Nationalism one, and it was just the sad soul (who went to PENN and is going to Harvard Law) who had to run it. Half way though another teenager joined, but only because he literally had nothing better to do at the time.

Along with feeling a lack of desire for learning among a majority of the student body, there are also the pressures of college. I have grown up with Yale looking at me, judging me, and waiting for January of 2007 when I send in my application (with the communist $60 application fee) and they laugh and throw it in the trash. When I meet people who are among the elect who go to Princeton, Yale, Harvard, et cetera, and have the ability to smile and mean it for their lives have not been a pathetic sorry waste of good tax dollars and oxygen, it only increases the anxiety and the enormity of the decision. I figure I have about twice to three times the normal person’s chances of getting into the top schools. This means that at a minimum, 3 out of 4 times I am getting rejected, and my application is going in the heap with the other wastes of lives’. It is not desirable by any stretch of the imagination to ask people where they want to/went to college. ‘Tis a lose/lose situation. Either they got into a worthy school (Harvard, Yale, I don’t need to list the other few) and that makes me nervous, for they have more right to oxygen than I do, or they didn’t, and I will soon be joining them among life’s rejects- you went to UConn, great. This sounds very elitist and arrogant, and I am just as much of a loser as those who do not get accepted; maybe more because I spend 80% of my time, thinking, writing, or talking about college. On that topic, I have found that I have been reading and writing less; just worrying about college. At this present time, I am still basing the success of my life on whether or not Harvard and the like accept me, but I am still applying to less worthy schools. A month ago I thought I had a shot at Chicago, but at my confidence level now it looks like Rutgers (about 50% acceptance rate and a top philosophy school) is so far in the clouds I might as well keep my money. My confidence is never consistent, and I may take back this entire rant at some time. The worst of this is college occupies a lot of my time, and most of my decision making. I have found I am painfully less productive than usual, and haven’t finished a book in a week to date! I usually end on a quote from Shakespeare, Nietzsche or the Bible, but I have nothing. I could quote Matthew 6.27, but it would be the antithesis of this piece.