Assorted Afflatuses

While I have something of an affinity for the English language, I do not have an affinity for the "art" that is literary criticism. Nothing, save perhaps the handful of utterly idiotic errors I made on my second mathematics exam, in my one semester of tertiary education has caused me more grief than my French literature class. To be sure, I feel much more intelligent having read such big names as Baudelaire and Appolinaire in their original unfiltered French. Analyzing their poetry, however, has caused me a great deal of mental pain, albeit mental pain for the better.

Mathematics, on the other hand, is perhaps the most pragmatic subject around. It is, for the most part, utterly useless by itself, but, when coupled with a real world problem — particle physics or microeconomics — mathematics manages to solve big problems without messy ambiguity.

As such, when my French literature course turned its attention to Oulipo, I was intrigued. For Oulipo — whose name constitutes a shortened form of "ouvroir de littérature potentielle" or "the workshop of literary potential" — strives to bridge the divide between literature and mathematics.

Of all the avant-garde literary movements producing bizarre, conceptual writing, Oulipo is, without question, the least insane. The writing created using the various Oulipo constraints, while often entirely nonsensical, is at least founded in good mathematics. Moreover, much of the more nonsensical pieces are hilarious, and the more serious pieces are technically breathtaking.

Georges Perec — one of the more well-known "Oulipiens" — penned La Disparition without using a single "e." But, while one might imagine, out of sheer necessity, a 300 page novel without a single "e" would be a meaningless blob of jibber-jabber, French book critics failed to notice the lack of "e" on first glance. Frankly, I found skimming La Disparition a tad frightening. Had I not known Perec omitted the letter "e," I would never have noticed its absence.

One of the more amusing Oulipo works for the mathematically inclined is Cent mille milliards de poèmes or One hundred thousand billion poems. The printed book itself is no larger than a standard hardcover, which, when first I saw it, made me cast doubt on the whole Oulipo movement. I figured the title was nothing more than superfluous literary hyperbole.

Inside, however, the book contains a series of manipulable strips, each printed with a line of poetic verse. I liken it to magnetic poetry. Granted, unlike those absurd magnetic poetry kits, which manage to combine my hatred of refrigerator magnets and completely ambiguous poetry, any permutation of the lines in Cent mille milliards de poèmes actually makes sense. More importantly, it is actually possible to produce about one hundred thousand billion poems, given the number of interchangeable lines in the book.

Whether Oulipo manages to truly bridge the realms of literature and mathematics, I cannot be sure. Nevertheless, Oulipo is easily my favorite way to play with words in a way founded entirely in mathematics.

(For the French-speakers out there, a visit to the Oulipo website at oulipo.net cannot go amiss.)

Of all the horrible staples of college life, one stands out in my mind as the most obnoxious. Some might focus their attention on the dunderheaded folks who disrupt everyone's sleep by holding loud conversations about meaningless jibber-jabber at 4 AM. Others might (quite erroneously, in my opinion) bemoan the insipidity of the muffins. But neither of those two problems have any relevance or weight when compared to the Internet access here at Bates.

I doubt there exists another system even a tenth as convoluted as the system deployed on the Bates campus. It took me no less than three hours to connect my laptop to the Internet for the first time. Three hours! What is more, had it not been for the serendipitous presence and wonderful benevolence of someone a floor down from me, the process might have taken even longer.

For, to correctly authenticate with the network, I needed to install a security certificate on my computer. But, to obtain the certificate, I needed an Internet connection. It took a second computer, with a functioning Internet connection, to put my computer online. Insanity.

Coercing the software to cooperate, however, is only the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. First, there is the software itself. The Cisco Clean Access Agent, companion software product to the infamous Cisco NAC Appliance, is, at least on the Macintosh, poorly-written, dysfunctional and mildly parasitic. When it fails to do a mediocre job connecting me to the Internet, the Clean Access Agent throws caution to the wind, causing kernel panics, forcing restarts, and crashing iTunes. The software also seems to have trouble realizing it has not successfully connected me to the Internet on some occasions. In the five weeks I have been using the software, I have uninstalled and reinstalled it at least four dozen times because it cannot correctly determine the status of my connection.

Then there is the quality of the Internet access itself. On most days it makes me dream of dial-up. My iPhone, connected to the Internet via molasses-like EDGE and operating on a relatively pokey 600 MHz ARM processor, can usually load pages faster than my dual-core laptop connected to the college network. I suspect the problem is twofold. On the one hand, the college needs to realize that, what with YouTube, iTunes and easy videoconferencing, students use far more bandwidth than the college has. Time to upgrade to a zippier connection, as it were. On the other, the software on the network's routers do an awful job of traffic shaping. I have little doubt that some tiny, self-serving group of people suck up 90 percent of the college's bandwidth downloading reruns of Baywatch after classes end at four.

As if the lamentable software, awful connection quality and convoluted installation procedure were not enough, however, I also cannot connect my iPhone to the campus WiFi network. Despite the fact that no third-party software can be installed on the iPhone now, and the fact that Apple would never be sufficiently insane to allow third-parties access to the kind of low-level APIs an iPhone Clean Access Client would need, the college categorically refuses to allow the iPhone onto the NAC Appliance's mythical "white list." Without any authorization, the phone has no Internet access via WiFi. I particularly like the laconic response the IT department sent in response to my email inquiring into the subject of iPhone WiFi access:

I cannot decide whether the "NO" was intended to be in all caps. Regardless, I would have appreciated the "why" behind the senseless policy.

To me, the fact I cannot connect my device to the network is a breach of good morals. It is as if the college were issuing a ban on filling pitchers of a certain shape with the dormitory tap water. I pay a share of the costs associated with the Internet connection, network hardware and its upkeep, thus I should be permitted to use the connection on any device, so long as it does not harm the group. I hardly see my accessing email, browsing maps of Berlin or reading the New York Times on my phone with the help of the campus WiFi network as a violation of that implicit contract.

I joined the Facebook group, Clean Access is the Bane of My Existence, though, with only 13 members as of now, I doubt it will have much of an impact in the near-term. I almost feel as if more direct, outspoken action is necessary to deal with this most troublesome of problems.

There is nothing quite like the smell of alcohol in the morning. But such is life in my dormitory. Or, perhaps, life in any college dormitory. Needless to say, I continue to adjust slowly to life without the luxury of carpet below my feet. (Though that particular problem will be remedied once I manage to pick out a rug.)

Given the less than vibrant restaurant scene in Lewiston, Maine, it is quite fortunate that the dining services folks here at Bates serve food leaps and bounds beyond what I have consumed on other college campuses. In particular, I have nothing but praise for the Bates muffins. They are simply divine. The scones erred a little on the moist side, and the green tea on offer lacks the kind of intense, bitter flavor I like, but the muffins positively cannot be beat.

My second food-related complaint — the lack of luscious crusty bread — may soon be remedied. The fancy new (and mysteriously air conditioning free) commons building, according to one of the officials on hand for questions, has a magnificent oven capable of producing wonderful, hearty bread in the blink of an eye. What I would not give for a just-baked baguette! It has been weeks now, since I have sunk my teeth into something as scrumptious.

More academically speaking, the fine art we call linear algebra, for better or worse, has not posed nearly as much of a challenge as I thought it would. The study of linear algebra, though, has not made me any more fond of matrices. They still torment me like some kind of awful, pestilent disease. Some might argue that, with a calculator, matrices "aren't that bad." But typing matrices into a calculator, or a computer, for that matter, is a process highly prone to errors.

The opposite holds true for my French literature class. Reading Flaubert, Maupassant, Baudelaire and Apollinaire, and writing two six-hundred word literary analyses in French — all in the space of four weeks — takes a certain amount of effort. Having said that, reading French literature makes me feel very smug. Whether I can justify that smugness, however, is another question entirely.

I feel no need to conceal or contort the following statement: At long last, I have been accepted into a college. And, for that matter, a very good college. For, contained in an envelope, which was itself inside a larger envelope, I received a letter of acceptance from the fine folks at Bates College.

But, to my great dismay, my acceptance to Bates has only served to complicate my life.

I need to re-read the letter, but, from what I understand, I only have until 28 November to make up my mind. That, of course, throws something of a wrench into my seemingly well-conceived plan to simultaneously apply to the University of Chicago, which, in a best case scenario, would have given me a choice between two colleges.

Fortunately, the 28 November deadline would give me just enough time to fly out to Lewiston and give the place a thorough examination, so I would not have to accept sight unseen. At the same time, I might be squandering the opportunity to attend the University of Chicago or even another institution. Of course, I might still choose to attend Bates, even if another school accepts me.

On the whole, though, I feel much better knowing that at least one school thinks me worthy of gracing their hallowed halls of learning.

*Just after I clicked the "Publish" button on Moveable Type, I realized that the title of this entry could be misinterpreted as a made-up verb meaning "to rid oneself of anything to do with Bates." That, however, was not my intention. It was meant to be a play on "Debating."

I have long held the College Board at least partially responsible for my current situation. After all, it is the College Board who sold me a misleading test prep book that duped me into taking the Mathematics SAT Subject test completely unprepared. The first time I took the test I managed a rather unimpressive 650, or something to that effect. Naturally, I took the test again, which meant I had, at that point, paid the College Board twice to take the test and once for their misleading preparatory materials: certainly more than if I had bought a third-party test prep book and taken the test once. I find it difficult to believe that the College Board actually cares about any facet of my well-being.

But, more than the test prep book incident, I have never entirely understood how I managed to score a five on the calculus BC Advanced Placement test, yet failed to break 700 on the mathematics section of the SAT despite having thrice taken the test. I doubt anyone would — or could — argue that integral calculus is easier than finding the area of two circles.

At the same time, however, I have wondered whether that one small blemish on my otherwise gleaming CV spelled my downfall in the ultra-competitive college admissions race.

So, at my interview yesterday with a University of Chicago admissions officer, I asked about the University's policy vis-à-vis SAT scores in the admissions process. According to her, the University of Chicago does not give students' SAT scores a great deal of weight, which initially allayed my fears.

But, in the ensuing discussion, she also noted that most selective colleges strive to have, as she described it, "the best class ever," in order to maintain their sterling reputation. For obvious reasons, it would be difficult to categorically state that the class of 2011 wrote better essays than the class of 2010. A college would have no trouble, however, in qualifying one class as better than the one before it by citing an increase in average SAT scores.

In other words, some colleges deny admission to highly qualified students simply to ensure their average SAT score continues to rise. Not exactly the most well-reasoned logic. It seems to me that an institution would better attract qualified applicants and maintain its reputation for excellence by citing its students' actual achievements. As my interviewer pointed out, SAT scores are, by and large, terrible predictors of a student's ability to succeed.

Though, perhaps I am deluding myself. I am very bitter.

Nothing makes me happier than a coincidence with a positive results. Last week, however, I encountered serendipity's opposite. As I wrote on Friday, the fine folks at the University of Chicago ran out of positions for prospective interviewers who planned to visit the campus in Chicago. That was something of a minor tragedy because I do not think that my unique presence or personality can be conveyed as successfully to someone through the words of an alumnus or alumna.

As such, I settled for the next best option: an alumni interview. I clicked the link on the U Chicago application to request an interview and waited. As luck would have it, I was contacted by one of the University's assistant admissions directors, who, as it happens, will be in the Portland area to do interviews with applicants this weekend. Given that I do not suffer from any severe mental handicaps, I leapt at the opportunity, and, fortunately, I will, in fact, do an interview on Saturday.

Hopefully, the fact that I will speak directly to someone in the admissions office — who may make the final discussion regarding my application — will increase my chances of gaining admission. I have long believed that, had the schools I applied to offered interviews with the actual admission committee, I would have been able to stand out much more easily (and perhaps more successfully) from the mass of other highly-qualified people seeking entrance to America's top schools.

Come December, I shall either be vindicated or, not for the first time, thoroughly disappointed. This time around, however, I do have a fail-proof plan. Depending upon the decisions I receive in December, I may or may not re-apply to Princeton, Pomona and Northwestern and apply, for the first time, to the University of Rochester, Carnegie-Mellon University and, as a last, but very certain, resort, the University of Oregon honors college. The Stanford Sticker Paradox, as I call it — the strange phenomenon whereby the Stanford admissions office loses far more application material than other schools despite their overly persnickety rules about envelops, staples and labels — combined with their less-than-stellar reputation for undergraduate education, when compared to their graduate programs, removed that institution from my list. My interest for Dartmouth has waned to the point that I no longer see the point in applying. I may apply to Yale or Columbia in addition to the other schools, but I have yet to make a decision in that regard.

All in all, the stage looks set for at least some measure of fortune in my future. And, if the Chicago interview coincidence is any indicator, everything may turn out rather splendidly.

About one week ago, I came to the decision that I would apply to the University of Chicago. Apart from the many academic and social benefits offered by the university, the fine folks in the windy city offer a non-binding early action program. That would, in theory, give me two choices come December, assuming that both Bates and Chicago accept me.

Initially, the Chicago application, which has somehow managed to earn itself a reputation for being extremely long and rigorous, presented no substantive challenges. Thankfully, their two short-answer essay questions dispensed with excessively flowery language and esoteric literary allusions designed to project an air of prestige, making the questions a cinch to answer. Some of the long-answer essay topics, on the other hand, seemed overly philosophic. Essay option number three, for example, ends with, "Write a page. Who has written it?" I would share my essay here, but given my Google PageRank, there is a high probability that someone looking to cut corners might find it and make my life even more unpleasant.

Unlike the essays, however, managing to schedule an interview was next to impossible. I called the admissions office yesterday, thinking that I would be able to schedule an interview. But, almost as soon as I had finished stating my purpose for calling, the woman on the other end of the line informed me that the interview schedule was, "completely booked," to use her words.

I thought gaining admission to the University itself would be a challenge. But it seems that even obtaining a coveted on-campus interview is rather difficult.

Admittedly, I do deserve some of the blame. Early action candidates must complete their interviews before 2 November and, given that a great many people apply to the school, I probably should have called to book an appointment as soon as I had committed to applying, rather than three weeks before the deadline.

I do have some hope, though. About an hour after I was categorically denied the chance to interview, I called back and asked the lovely woman to whom I spoke whether it would be possible to put me onto some sort of ad hoc waiting list, should someone fall ill, die or find themselves otherwise incapable of interviewing. She did not commit to the idea, but said she would, "Keep me in mind."

Hopefully someone forgot to schedule an appointment for their flu shot. Otherwise I will have to schedule another utterly ineffective alumni interview. On principle, it does seem rather cruel to wish suffering upon another person, but given the amount of suffering that I have been subjected to, I think a moral exception ought be made.

America is a strange place. Black tie means no tie. "That's hilarious!" has been supplanted by "lol." And college applicants now send formal thank you notes to interviewers and admissions officers. According to an article published today in The New York Times, it has now become common practice for students to send formal thank you cards to interviewers and admissions staff in the hope that gratitude will somehow secure them a position at one of America's top schools.

A thank you note, from what I understand, is meant to communicate one's gratitude to someone who has performed an extraordinary service: something above and beyond the norm. For example, I doubt whether most people send a thank you note to their dental hygienist after a routine dental appointment. On the other hand, I can easily see a delighted couple sending a thank you note to their contractor after he or she exceeded their expectations by completing work ahead of schedule and under budget, a small miracle in the world of remodeling.

I see a college admission officer as doing the former more than the latter. Most colleges charge students anywhere from forty to seventy dollars to put their application into the pool because the people reading the applications — the admissions officers — are paid to look at and evaluate applications. The admissions officers are not going out of their way or doing anything particularly extraordinary by doing their jobs.

Alumni who interview students on a volunteer basis, however, might merit a thank you note. Unlike the admissions officers who are paid to review applications, they take the time out of their schedules to do something more exceptional. At the same time, those people do make the active decision to join their school's alumni association, which is a commitment to do work on behalf of their alma mater. And, of course, college staff or student who conduct interviews fall into the same group as the admissions staff who review applications; they are doing their jobs.

But even if the sending of thank you cards can be justified, the notion that it can make a difference in the application process should alert the public to the need for change. Sending a thank you note is far from the most genuine encapsulation of a person's character and ability.

Test scores or grades can be positively attributed to the applicant. Most application forms force students to vouch for the fact that their essays are indeed their own work, which gives those some degree of provenance. A thank you note, on the other hand, could easily be sent to a school or interviewer in the student's name by a counsellor, a parent or any other party. I hardly think it genuinely differentiates one candidate from another. Just as many extremely intelligent people forget to tie their shoelaces or walk into a shower with their clothes on, some lovely and talented people do not send out thank you notes as diligently as perhaps they should.

If this is not a sign that the system needs help, then I don't know what is.

For years I dreamt of making a fortune, buying a tract of land in an idyllic hamlet and retiring early with assets sufficient to continue funding my addictions to gadgets and designer clothing. That dream has now died. In the handful of weeks that I have spent with more or less nothing to do, I have come to the realization that retirement must be the most exhaustingly dull part of a person's life, except, perhaps, for those people who have a penchant for gardening. But given my aversion to dirt, I doubt I shall develop one.

Fortunately for me, I have the assurance that, with a tad more prudence this time around, I will go to college. And, even more fortunately, I was pointed to Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine. Bates, unlike most other schools of its caliber, has a January start date program, which — if I am accepted — would let me escape from boredom in just a few months. I submitted my application yesterday, though I doubt that will expedite the decision of the admissions committee.

By and large, I like the idea of Bates. From what I have read, they have an excellent array of academic programs and Bates graduates are regularly accepted into the nation's top graduate schools. The weather is a tad chilly during the winter, but I see that more as a good excuse to buy a fancy cashmere coat. Students at Bates also have a high propensity to study abroad, with about 80% of students spending some extended length of time in another country. My only reservation concerns the college's remote location. Lewiston, Maine, while the second largest city in the pine tree state, only has a population of 37,000. I have warmed to the idea of life in rural Maine since Bates was first proposed to me. Still, I find the idea of life over a hundred miles from the nearest Design Within Reach store or bona fide symphony a little unsettling.

The rural location would be far more tolerable if the railway system in the Northeast were less disorganized. From what I understand, everything south of Portland, Maine is very well-connected. It would be fairly easy, for instance, to take the train from Portland to New York City. But traveling to Portland from any other city in Maine seems to require a great deal of planning and hassle. More convoluted infrastructure in the United States.

Given that I will not receive my decision before 1 December, I will probably apply to one or two schools on their early-action or early-admission program, just in case Bates does not want to take me. Hopefully life without DWR will not be too unpleasant.

For most of Earth's population, the bad times become a good time to question the existence of God. I, on the other hand, seriously question my belief that no such power exists when everything falls apart. And, of late, no tragedy more horrific has befallen me than my extremely unpleasant and depressing experience with the college admissions process.

As anyone who has even heard my name now knows, I applied, partly out of hubris and out of well-reasoned counsel, to five schools. Initially four of them rejected me outright. But for the last two months I have lived with the faint hope of a spot at Northwestern hanging above my head.

Two days ago, however, that hope became yet more despair thanks to the arrival of one sadly anorexic envelope. It seems that my wit, whimsy and previous penchant for success were not enough even for the purple-tinged folks at Northwestern University to offer me a spot in this fall's freshman class.

Indeed, it is times such as these that I wonder whether or not some omniscient being is exacting his or her revenge upon me. What other force could have conspired to arrange such a terrible set of circumstances?

First I was condemned to apply in a year when every college set a new record for the number of applicants who wished to attend. Then the College Board just happened to incorrectly schedule me for a SAT Reasoning Test, rather than the SAT Subject Test, which prevented me from applying to Princeton early and subsequently diminished my chances of gaining admission there.

After I submitted my applications, every college, save Dartmouth, managed to lose at least one form, with the result that I had to mail them extras, which, for all I know, they never received. I went so far as to pay an exorbitant sum to have my SAT scores sent to schools via express delivery after four of them mysteriously failed to receive them when I had them mailed initially.

Then not one, but four of the schools sent me a flat out rejection. Northwestern, of course, decided to give me a position on their wait list, which also came to nothing.

So, while my piety pale in comparison to the founders of the Creation Museum, I have at least begun to consider reconsidering my belief that no all-powerful being exists. At least my crops were not destroyed by a plague of locusts.