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So...this weekend I've been accosted by really good, relatively old friends...both of whom I actually met in the summer between seventh and eighth grades, and neither of whom I have seen in many months. Accosted, that is, in the middle of attempting to write essays for college--so it's more than cool.

Karen called me last night and we talked for a long time. I feel kind of bad, though, because it seems like whenever somebody calls me or tries to chat with me on the weekends nowadays, I'm exceedingly...unenthusiastic. I've been so...I'm not even going to come up with an adverb, because it's pretty much the definition of being swamped with work lately that thinking, much of the time, simply doesn't work out in my favor. *Sigh*...well, maybe I'll go cut myself, cry about it, take pictures, and make a post on MySpace. (Sorry, everyone.) Nonetheless, I was glad to catch up with her--seems she hasn't been having the best of luck in school either--or, for that matter, out of it. Hopefully things'll turn around, or, at least, slow down.

Fay IM'd me a little bit ago--you remember Fay, right? Fei? As in, my first year at CTY, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY? Birthday on...the fifth of November? Yes, that Fay...and no, you, in all liklihood, don't remember; suffice to say that she's very cool. A couple of years back, when I was in New York, New York over New Year (man, capital Ns and Ys are cool), I even called her and stuff, and we met for some crazy ice skating (possibly in Central Park) which largely entailed her zipping around backwards and spinning repeatedly and me falling down several times and mostly failing to get up. Yeah, basically, we had a blast, and it's always cool to see people that you haven't in a long time.

Between the two conversations, I've reaffirmed something that I've thought for a while now: around one's sophomore and junior years in high school, a great portion of growing up wraps itself up and takes a huge chunk out of one's childhood (by definition, kind of). Talking to Davis earlier tonight, too, after the Young Democrats meeting, I think it's true. Maybe tenth grade is still a little early, though; probably more like the latter half of high school for most of my friends (I recognize that not everybody is like us, not everybody thinks like us, but I like to think that most of the people around whom I hang are more mature than those I don't--at least, mature enough when necessary).

Around, well, this semester for me, a lot of things suddenly matter less. We don't care as much about learning for learning's sake, we're not really passionate about our high school clubs and activities, and our sports are just there for time filler. We've gotten pretty much all that we need from junior high and we're ready for more; most raw information left is either mere generalities and overview or impractical, most in-depth knowledge is inapplicable later in life or, if not, then we'll learn it anyways later, and our personal styles are pretty much set.

Mr. Sam Hurt, the man who interviewed me for MIT, said that there's a whole lot of value in that last, that senior year of high school; he said that it's there mainly for one last year to live like a kid, to be truly social, and to have something of a break before jumping up another teir in life and assuming all the associated responsibilities. I don't think that he was wrong, but nor do I think that his statement was really directed at me. For those of us who have taken as much advantage of our schools as we could, for those of us who are honestly trudging through another few semesters so that we have more of a chance later in life, not because we want to, not because we directly care about what's happening, college *is* the answer. There is a vast, distinct difference between a student like John who doesn't do well under traditional criteria and the other third of our school which doesn't do well in that John is simply too intelligent to work well in the environment (he's just not wise enough to see that when you're at the very bottom of society, you have to cater to a lot of higher-ups to even come close to getting anywhere).

The five of us--Karen, Fay, Mark, John, and I--can all get good grades if we try. Yes, I'm being blatantly elitist, but I'm trying to say that that's not the important part; no offense to the man or anything--he's extremely smart and gifted in many ways, including a few that I'm not--but people like David Brooks are designed for high school-level thinking; they'll do well there and be proud of it, then they'll go on to college and do everything that's required of them and be happy, and they'll run through life in a crowd of millions, content. While they're especially special, they're not extraordinary. *They* value high school and work with that; *we* want more, we *need* more, and we challenge what we know before accepting it. I suppose that one could say that the devil's advocate is on our side, but that'd be pushing it a little.

Basically, we're ready for college. There have always been people like us, and there, no doubt, always will be; the problem is that there are so few of us that we're rarely noticed, that we're rarely actually regarded as individuals. Unfortunately, though, that makes sense; still too few among far, far too many. It's easier to just sit around and wait for talent to show itself than it is to encourage it in everyone and seek it out; way too many people around for that. Mark has a severe handicap with his lack of self-esteem; Reggie had a crippling issue with refusing to listen to authority (kind of like John); I think Betsy had a real problem with being too realistic and not reaching far enough.

Me? Boy, do I have problems; much to my dismay, chagrin, and frustration, what I consider my most unique trait--my perspective and attempts at distinctiveness--is often my own hand covering my own face. I get so caught up in wherever I'm going with whatever I'm doing that I miss the obvious problems, or I get so involved in my own world, my own version of how things are going in my head that I do lose sight of the big picture. It goes so far that I even take a jog up rather than just a few steps back.

The difference, though...

The difference is that that's precisely the purpose of schools like Williams, MIT, Princeton, and Cornell: to bring people who have more in themselves than anyone realizes into the light of reality, taking each of--dare I say--us and showing us how to work with life everywhere, how to be different in the world, more than just telling us more stuff and showing us ways to do things. There is conception and there is application; there is explicating and applying text, and there is explicating and reforming news; there is being among the best and brightest, and there is being among the exceptional and incomparable.

I'm not saying that I'm among any of those latter; I wish I were, and I aspire to be some day, but gods, what I wouldn't give to be in college right now, somewhere like Caltech or MIT, somewhere like Williams, where I could be thinking all of this in discussion with friends, maybe even professors. And gods, what I wouldn't give to have just to have one person in the world who understands.

(...If you actually read all of that, please drop me a line...? lyngus@gmail.com ...Even if you're just writing to say, "You're a pretentious prick; go away." Like I said, it's kind of lke the whole, "For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost" type of faulty--be it reasoning or or oversight--process thing. Thanks.)