more difficult than I thought.

Applying to colleges, I mean.  

It's that magical time of year, when the Common App comes out (that'd be August 1, keep up, now), when all the seniors start scrambling to pick schools to court, and when we all finally have to face the realisation that oh holy crap I'm going to college soon.  I should figure that out.  And, as I recently discovered, it's also disturbingly expensive.  Like, really, shockingly, alarmingly expensive.    I'm rather put out by this.  

However, I've also learned a lot.  For example, I learned the difference between early action and early decision. Early action means you apply early--meaning you've actually got your Common App done by November 1--and the colleges are kind enough to let you know if you got in by, like, December.  Or something timely like that.  Early decision, on the other hand, goes something along the lines of "you apply early to us, and if we admit you, you're going here.  And no backing out.  On penalty of death.  By dragon.  And drowning.  And giant metal chicken attack.  All at once.  Oh, and don't apply anywhere else or we'll also eat you before the dragon gets a chance."  Of course, if you don't get in to the early decision school, you can still apply to other schools at the regular decision time.

Then there's also something called restrictive early action, to which I can't actually  see any real point.  It's like early action in that you don't   have to attend there  if you get in, but like early decision in that you can't apply early to anywhere else (barring a long and convoluted list of exceptions) lest the unfortunate applicant wish to suffer the same fiery-drowningy-giant-chicken-y fate as the  unfortunate reluctant early-decision-er.  I'm really unclear on why restrictive early action exists, actually.  

Maybe this is the sort of thing sophisticated people understand.  Like classics.  Specifically, like Crime and Punishment. Which is one of the few books I actually find difficult to read.  Don't misunderstand; I love reading, and it's not that this book is 'too hard' or whatever.  But it is kind of brain-numbing.  Thirty pages in, I noticed that a drunk guy had been rambling on since page fourteen without any ramble-free pages in the interim.  I was mildly impressed by the loquacious character, as I read on, until I realised oh wait, the whole book is like this.     I think I came to that conclusion about the time Raskolnikov goes looking for an axe. 

And I promptly took a nap.

Yay summer reading assignments!

On an entirely unrelated note, I've been out of town for a significant portion of the summer.  First I went to Hawaii, which was pretty lovely:

and I tried to make this last one massive, because it's film and pretty high-res and I took a longish exposure and I'm rather proud of it

...but then it kind of didn't fit in my blog layout.  oops.

Then I went to Washington to visit my non-biological twin, but I don't have any photos of the area even though eastern Washington is gorgeous because I kind of already used up my four rolls of film on Hawaii.

  *insert facepalm here*

xx