What are you doing right now?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Besides posting on here and replying to this thread. Original credit for this goes back to Fate and Nathan on MX.

[o0_flying high_0o]

What on earth does A&E stand for?

That's an impressive amount of stupid though, I mean a bottle cap is a little big to accidentally swallow. 

[nathan_p]

Accident and Emergency, I think.

[Omega]

Yup, Accident and Emergency.

Completely stupid. It was probably a bet, or something equally moronic and he hasn't told us. But it's okay, because my parents are heading down there anyway for his birthday this weekend and they'll get the whole story out of him and/or his flatmates.

[o0_flying high_0o]

If you can read Newsflesh by Mira Grant, do. Like, immediately.

It's post-zombie world + discussion on the media + discussion on science + political conspiracies + fear as a political tool + characters that'll steal your heart.

[EndOfTheEarth]

It's a bit odd, looking back on it. My professors take so much time talking about Post Vietnam fiction and the more I think about entertainment media in the past ten years, I can't help but think about what I suppose is Post 9-11 fiction as well.

Look back at the most recent Batman movie, for instance, and think about it.

Or, better yet, look back at your own writing. What does it say about the state of the world at the time of writing; how did you feel in relation to how everyone else felt?

[nathan_p]

I didn't start writing until after 9/11, and it's not like I have great samples of my writing from the past anyway.

But I do think that writing post-9/11 has made it much more difficult to tell a dystopian story -- because a world where you have to be irradiated and be herded through a line by bored government officials before you can board a plane is normal now, where it used to be a weird science-fiction concept, and suggestive of Those Awful Totalitarian Countries. You have to work much harder to make the things a government is doing seem oppressive, because we've gotten used to being eavesdropped on by our government.

My grandmother was born in 1946, and my mother in 1964. Both of them came of age in a world where you were told that nuclear war could break out any moment, so you had to be prepared. (Hell, during Reagan's administration it almost did happen, more than once.)

The world I came of age in isn't afraid of nuclear war. We're afraid of "terrorists", a much more nebulous concept. We look at people with suspicion because they have dark skin, wear headscarves, are not American Protestants. We're afraid of this terrorist menace that's not there.

I used to kind of think, when I was a kid, that I would grow up into the world Arthur C. Clarke wrote about. I was going to be able to vacation on the Moon, have a job on Europa. We were going to colonize the stars.

I grew up and I realized that the future I got was less like 2001 than 1984. 

What I remember from 9/11 and the year after isn't much. Mostly fear. I was relatively insulated from the actual political climate because I was, y'know, seven. I remember this weird intense patriotism in the world all of a sudden. I don't remember when we went to war because it didn't register -- I remember a fluff human-interest piece about the number of babies born in June 2002 because people went home and fucked like rabbits on 9/11, and another about a guy who stood on one of the bridges in NYC for a full year after. I remember my fourth-grade class being so angry about what we thought had happened -- we all wanted to track this Bin Laden guy down and whale on him for -- for what? We just knew he'd done something bad. Our parents and the news said it was his fault the way the world had gotten all weird. Why we had to stand in lines before getting on a plane.

Things got weird in America. They're still weird.

[EndOfTheEarth]

Just pretty much wrote my younger sister's book report on Maximum Ride.

My parents: Are you familiar with this book?

Me: ALL THE ACADEMIC DISCOURSE ON THE INTERNET ABOUT THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN BY ME!

[nathan_p]

Haha nice.

[Contradiction]

Is there any legitimate way, when writing a college application or the information sheet for teachers to use to write recommendations, to use to my advantage the fact that I'll be a 16 year old when entering college?

I'd like to use it because it's fairly uncommon, but on the other hand, it's kind of this self-aggrandizing tidbit that really doesn't mean anything in the context that I've been in this graduating class since first grade.

[Lamp Post]

You can always put in on the cheat sheet you give to your teachers for their recommendations and ask that they slip it in, or if there's a short answer/additional information box you could use it.  Esp, if you'd have nothing else to write.

You just have to steer clear of phrases that sound like you're justifying going to college so young/maturity/etc, rather than you're just brilliant.

But they will have your birth date.  So if something is super close and they actually thoroughly read the application they very well may notice that your birth year is 2-3yrs after those who are applying.

[Xuut]

A lot of the major unis here actually have an extra comment thing to add, typically on the PSE or on the application that indicates something that makes you stand out.

[Xuut]

Seriously irritated by the lack of our car's insurance. It's causing so many problems. >.> Ugh, we really need two cars. 

Also, looking at the Queens University's PSE and thinking, "how in the hell am I supposed to count hours for cooking and cleaning? I HAVE A LOT OF HOUSEHOLD RESPONSIBILITIES."