i’m due for lasik eye surgery in 2 hours. i’m sooooooooo scared, and the worst part is that i will going through it alone with nobody’s hand to clutch fearfully on to :( i wanted to bring Lenny with me, but i was rushing out of the house this morning so i left him behind. i do, however, take comfort in the fact that the clinic provides some teddy bears to hold on to during surgery. so thoughtful!

by the way, of all the things to suddenly stumble across — i found out during my pre-op yesterday that one can’t use eye make-up for a whole month after getting lasik done. i swear that made me hesitate and reconsider asking for my deposit back. someone said on plurk that going without eyeliner for a month is like going naked, and that echoes my sentiments exactly. how ah like this? and why am i so vain?

having a third US college apps workshop this saturday. i’m very excited about it, as i always am when it comes to talking about US colleges. despite all my complaints about how jaded i’ve become after dealing with some very impossible kids even if for just two years, i feel so thrilled whenever i watch them learn and improve as i give them my comments and feedback. i love it most when after hours of thinking, i come up with an idea for a certain applicant’s ‘magic ingredient’, and i can discuss it with them and then proudly watch them create the entire product all on their own. it’s really been such a long time since i’ve found something that i love doing this much. this is what life is about, right?

but on the other hand, there are those aforementioned impossible kids. i blogged last week that i quite foolishly showed one of my essays in one of the workshops i spoke at, but what i didnt mention was that i also threw out as examples a couple of essay ideas that i both used and didnt use in my own applications. was i really surprised when we got back students’ essays for review and discovered that some of them ripped off my essay ideas? a couple of them practically took the entire template and inserted their own words in there. sadly, i was actually very taken aback. and confused. how can people be so insipid? so careless?

i had a long talk with some of my friends about such things. what can i do as a person who puts high-value information out there for practically free, and so willingly shares within minutes advice and tips that took each of us months and years to learn? am i spoiling the market? but more importantly am i also contributing to the spoiling of these kids? if i could, i wish to only speak to and teach the kids who are genuinely passionate about doing the right things — and are not just about doing the most things, or the most prestigious activities, or applying to Harvard just because it’s Harvard. but how does one filter out such people? and how does one decide who the right people are? as everyone likes to remind me — c’est la vie, and there’s nothing that i can do about it.

but ce n’est pas la vie. there’s plenty that i can do about it. :) and luckily, the US college system is very efficient at separating the wheat from the chaff, no matter how good the chaff at are bluffing.

to any of our workshop attendees who are reading this, and also read chen chow’s angry email — trust me, his email echoes a lot of the facilitators’ sentiments. and unluckily for you, we remember every single one of you who said things like, “i plan to break the scholarship bond after my studies; it’s just nice to have a scholarship award on my CV!” and “how many hours of community service do i have to do in order to get into an Ivy League school?” there was also a comment from someone about how we should get less ‘accomplished’ facilitators to run the workshop, because our achievements were making them feel threatened. but listen, nobody is ordinary. everybody spends a bulk of their time doing that one thing. it’s just that we learned over the years how to present it to our colleges as something that defines us and is potentially useful to the college and community.

i know lots of amazing writers who didnt get into the ivy league because they got so wrapped up in carving beautiful wordplay that they forgot to tell a story. i know people who filled out their CVs with a whole laundry list of competition awards, honors and achievements, but didnt make the cut because all of their activities were so self-centered. likewise, there are also people who do so much community service but didn’t get into any ivies. the point is that The Criteria that seems to be What The Schools Are Looking For is actually not as checklist-y as it seems.

so what’s the secret sauce? we dont have it. i dont claim to know it, but i think that i have a good eye for secret sauces that are customized to each person. there simply is no fixed formula, and our workshops appear to be so haphazard and contradictory (btw, big thanks to the person who misrepresented my recommendation letters to the counselor from Raffles — when supplied the context later he actually gave his approval. SO THERE.) only because all of us facilitators are so different, and we each got into our schools BECAUSE we’re so different.

i may sound like i’m really angry here — okay, i am — but i also know how elusive it is to feel like one is good enough to get into the best schools in the world. i dont think anyone ever feels like they’re good enough. i remember how each time i got harsh critique on my essays, i always felt like giving up on this whole Ivy League thing. i mean, writing the perfect essay is just -so hard-, and here are these people telling me that the best work i can come up with is shit. who needs the ivy league anyway? so i’m wincing as i look at some of the very blunt reviews that we wrote on the applicants’ essays, but i’m telling you guys: as i much as i empathize over how discouraging it is to read comments on an essay you worked so hard to pour your souls into, this critique really will do wonders for your application. trust us. we’re honest because we have to be. we dont always have the time to mince words with you, but the point is that we shouldnt have to. and you must always remember not to feel discouraged no matter how intimidating everything seems.

okay rant over, though i still want to murder the handful of people who plagiarized my essays. ya, sorry, i dont like any of you now, so dont talk to me on saturday.

sigh okay. surgery time.