I feel bad for whoever writes the rejection letters for each university. Either they perceive themselves as the delicate puppeteers of teenage emotions, or they enjoy the feeling of causing fear into the hearts and minds of applicants. Either way, the words they carefully choose to commit to paper have a tremendous effect on millions of lives, before they are recklessly torn to pieces, and then hopefully recycled. I can image the writer’s block that would ensue from the enormity of the challenge: hand floats gently over the paper of as a few sentences crawl miserably and weekly unto to the paper before the pen refuses to ink another word. All the hatred of the task has been bottled up in the tip of the pen and seizes the conventionally logical mind of the author, causing them to throw down the infuriating pen and uncap a brightly colored sharpie and scribble in the most sickening handwriting:
REJECTED!
The author has vented the anger in her own mind, but decides to cap the sharpie and toss the old pen for good measure. Picking up another pen, the words “Calm, Peace and newly cut grass” appear across the paper in a relaxing mantra. Obviously, this is a ridiculous projection for a writer who is respected enough to be entrusted with the task, but from the student that could – though, all hopes and tasks are being moved against it– receive such a letter, the idea of using a sharpie to make the statement clearer and less removed is actually quite pleasing.
I didn’t start buying the more flashy line of sharpies, like the key ring clip-on or the retractable lines, until a series of commercials aired this past summer. The catch phrase was “write out loud” and featured hands writing eloquent statements before giving up and actually saying what they mean. My plight of the rejection letter writer would have fit right in. The commercials advocate straight and to the point writing- even though it uses less ink and cut sales. If I were truly to follow the advice of this commercial series, I would have sent in a piece of notebook paper with the words:
I have a voice.
in burgundy ink as found in the bold colors sharpie line in my standard all caps writing to function as my college admissions essay, but I know better than to trust what I hear on television.
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You know that rejection and acceptance letters are all prewritten and uniform, where a computer puts in your name, right? This was kind of a trippy blog.
I think you may have missed the point...
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You are the Voice of the Childwen of the Revowution! [Toulouse, Moulin Rouge]
I would go for it. Maybe send a short few paragraphs, but go with it. I think there are a lot of people out there that can appreciate boldness. I might try something like this on my next scholarship application.
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