ATTN: Bitches

I'm really bad at this Lent thing. I decided several days ago that I might be more successful at avoiding swearing if I tried to cut back slowly. Like one cuts back the nicotine. No cold turkey for me, thank you, I've got Nicoderm CQ! (I don't think it's working.)

This weekend, like too many weekends through the course of my short life, has been reasonably dull and useless so far. My most pressing task is to finish applying to teach at the Breakthrough Collaborative, which is a program run in many cities across the United States (and Hong Kong--whatever) that helps intelligent middle-schoolers from poor schools get into college by providing them with support throughout the schoolyear and into high school and running a sort of summer school where they are taught by college students and high schoolers. I'm applying to teach math and a world affairs elective. It'll be tough to get in; I think the Austin program accepts about 20% of its applicants. I imagine that my tutoring experience will help, but I'm going to need to knock them out with good essays and a nifty lesson plan if I'm going to have any chance. I've never written a lesson plan before. Damn.

One of the things they need on the application is three references. For two, I used my most recent employers at Pappadeaux and Houston Community College. For the third, I put down Mr. Eaton, my Algebra II teacher and Academic Decathlon coach. I figure he's the single educator who's had the most exposure to me, my zaniness, and my abilities, even if this experience was years ago. Of course, I felt the need to ask his permission since he wasn't an employer or anything. I tried calling his home phone and got no answer. After the call, I was giggling to myself at the idea of leaving some frightening message on his phone. In my senior year, just before the state competition for Decathlon, I sent him an email that said that since I'd recently turned (or was about to turn--can't remember) 18, the Turkish government had actually sent agents of the military to my house to come and enforce the mandatory conscription required of all Turkish citizens. He bought it, and he freaked out. It was all quite funny.

So I decided I might try to pull a similar stunt on him if he didn't pick up his cellular telephone. Before I called I got a story together. "My name is Bob Wilson from the Texas Department of Corrections, and I'm trying to reach a Mr. [first name] Eaton. I have here a Mr. Can-Tay [last name]. He was found urinating on a flagpole, and he listed you as an emergency contact. Please give me a call back as soon as you get this message. My number is [numbers]." When I called, I hit Mr. Eaton's voicemail. I went ahead and left the above message exactly as written in my husky Bob Wilson voice, except that I omitted the part about the flagpole. I thought it would be too silly.

Mr. Eaton called back about fifteen minutes later, voice all serious, asking to speak with Bob Wilson. I played along for a couple of exchanges, but I eventually burst out laughing and told him it was me.

Yeah, Mr. Eaton didn't find it all that funny. As it turned out, he was volunteering at a Decathlon competition at the time, and he was just very glad that I was all right. I felt pretty bad about the whole thing, but I did get permission to use him as a reference, though he did want me to email him with information about the program. I still need to do that.

Ah, how I love to cross lines. Somehow it's always funnier if you cross the line. I'm such an asshole. Heheheheh.

All right. I feel ready to try hitting up that application again. Like many economists, it is my sincere belief that one of America's greatest failings is that it has been unable to create a genuine meritocracy, where the correlation between your parents' income or your race and your future income, all else being equal, is 0. My heart goes out to the kids who weren't born into such benevolent circumstances as myself. It is frightening to think what I might have been like if I were born and schooled in an inner city. We have to stop that prospect from being frightening. If I could help contribute to any sort of equalization of opportunity, it would be the single most important thing I've done in my life.

Max, GW's Turkish-speaking political scientist, was so eager to fight for something that he believed in that he enlisted in the army after his freshman year. I don't know that I would do anything as drastic as that for this sort of cause. I don't think I'd have to, anyway. But it sure would be nice to advance something that you really believe in.