The title that has nothing to do with the post.
posted by Leila in christmas, college, musicThis happened about a week ago, but for those of you who missed on LJ, Facebook, or any other of my various ‘net haunts: I was accepted to UChicago! The financial aid estimate has yet to arrive and I still love almost all the other LACs on my list (yeah, all two of them), so I don’t have my heart set on it completely…but, we’ll see.
And for those of you who care about such things: Happy holidays! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! I would include Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, but the latter already ended and I know absolutely nobody who celebrates Kwanzaa. If you do, give me a holler; otherwise, I’m forever going to hold the opinion that it was one of the most pathetic contrivances of a holiday that ever existed. The idea was nice, but…honestly, “de-whitize Christmas”? There are plenty of not-white people who celebrate Christmas. I probably don’t have the right to rant about this, though, and the holiday spirit doesn’t put me in a mood for ranting anyway.
As for my obligatory random-ass irrelevant segue, I have a new love, and that love would be Schoolhouse Rock covers. When I was six or seven, my grandmother bought me a cassette called Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks, and for some reason it came up in conversation the other night…long story short, Seth and I promptly obtained the album and there was much squee-dorkishness in the moments that followed. The Pavement cover of “No More Kings” is to die for, friends, and Ween’s cover of “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World” made both of us feel many times more patriotic than we’ve been since we were first forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in kindergarten. Amazing stuff, folks. If you’d like a sample, it can be arranged, but since we’ve found that the vast majority of our readership doesn’t seem to be as hugely obsessed with music (or at least our music), don’t count on it.
Maybe, just maybe, we’ll have an about page up before next year.
Congratulations, Leila!
Amy on December 23rd, 2007 @ 12:27 am #
Awesome! Congratulations into getting in! :D
Eina on December 23rd, 2007 @ 2:37 am #
Congrats on UChicago! A part of me is wincing because I’m all like “Bryn Mawr is better!” but that’s just school spirit. I don’t actually know for sure. Although I do know I could not handle Chicago weather.
De-Whitize Christmas? LMFAO. That has to be just about the most ironic thing ever, particularly in certain parts of the country where it actually snows for Christmas. (There goes explaining the joke.) There’s a lot wrong with classifying Christmas as a White thing. It just further perpetuates the concepts of Christianity and money, and joy, and cheeriness being for White people. I REALLY don’t think that was the idea behind Kwanzaa (or Hannukah… which I can’t spell, let alone speak about). I think it has more to do with Black solidarity. But hey, I probably don’t know because I don’t celebrate it either. Ugh. I feel so void of culture. But yeah… I celebrate Christmas with the rest of us.
I’m obsessed with music! But although I have heard of Ween and like them to a point, I can’t say I’d like to hear them cover the songs of my childhood. Just doesn’t mix well with “Baby Bitch” and “Even If You Don’t” (my two favorite Ween songs). Which reminds me… If either of you have Last.fm add me!
Happy Holidays you two!
Asia on December 24th, 2007 @ 6:10 pm #
I never received the password to the ftp site. =[ Congrats on UChicago though!
Jessica on December 25th, 2007 @ 1:23 am #
Hmmmm… Chicago is an awesome town, and a really challenging school. Congrats.
But… I’ve heard it said that it’s a spiritual sibling of Columbia, where I went and dropped out. Furthermore I met two Chicago -> Columbia transfers who said Columbia was less spiritually draining, and I’ve heard that it’s a place where you have to work to be happy.
This is hearsay, and I’m sure that many many people love the school. And at least it isn’t in the depressingly decaying & yuppifying cultural world that is NYC.
Anyway, I guess my point is, spend time everywhere you’re accepted to see what’s fun and ignore prestige. Hang out with the radio station kids to see if the music types are fun or snobby jerks. College is only good for getting a job working for someone else, so there are far more important things to consider than how good it looks on a resume (not that you strike me as the type to think this way.)
Have fun wherever you go, and if you are in a great big awesome city, get off campus as often as possible.
Carter on December 26th, 2007 @ 9:48 pm #
ack forgot half my point:
Columbia is a nasty and spiritually draining place for anyone who isn’t a bit snobby (and there are some very nice slightly snobby folks) or pre-finance. Hearing anyone say some place is similar to but less pleasant than Columbia raises a big red flag. (for about four or five years there was a truly disturbing number of suicides for a school with 5000 undergrads).
All in all I wish I could have gone to Barnard.
Of course, there are dozens of personal things that can go wrong and color one’s impression of a school. A bad breakup, falling out of love with a major too late, the onset of mental illness, not being able to take a Chicago winter, family trouble etc. etc. etc.
So what two people (who were surely in the bottom 5% of happiness at the school) told some dude you’ve never met should be taken with a heart-disease inducing amount of salt.
Carter on December 26th, 2007 @ 9:56 pm #