It would be fun to get a big rectangular fish tank and put wood shavings in the bottom, then put my rubber koi in there like it's a hamster or something. I could give it an exercise wheel, food dish, and water bottle, too—all the accoutrements needed to make my fish happier than any other fish in the world. I could put the sparkle duck in there for company, then move them around as though they're actually doing things on their own and interacting. I can definitely see putting the fish on the exercise wheel...

I look at people here all the time and wonder about how they got in here. I've had this crazy idea, you see, that to get into a school like this you need to be extraordinarily talented or interesting or just have something going for you, so I look at people and try to figure them out. I can divine feasible reasons for why a lot of my friends are here. Morgan, for instance, is a fantastic musician and is incredibly good at reading people. He always picks up on the things that people refuse to say and does social commentary like a pro. A.'s also got the social commentary covered, and he's just really quick on the draw in general. R.'s got the whole multiple-languages-and-linguistics-and-philosophy thing going on, and she's a poet, too. Austin's just outstanding at so many things—music, English, computers, etc. Those are a few examples. I look around as I'm walking across campus or sitting at the workshop table in adv. fiction writing or hanging out in the newspaper office during production and if I look hard enough, I can usually figure out what it was that got so-and-so in here.

Unfortunately, while I've found a few talented, wonderful people, there are always these other people who don't make a lot of sense here. They annoy the hell out of me. I'm talking about dumb psych majors like [the rest of this paragraph unavailable at this time].

I don't understand why people like that are here, but then again, perhaps connections, money, and charisma have a lot to do with it. Still, with so many people applying to school here, you'd think that we'd have no trouble weeding out the idiots. I'm thinking a lot of the real winners gain admission here, sure enough, but then choose to go to places like Princeton, CalTech, and MIT. (That's not to impugn the real winners who are here, but to note a possible reason we don't have more here.) I mean, there are always going to be people who apply here as a gamble; this might be their "reach" school, No. 10 on the list of schools they thought they'd try for. [shrugs] Some people, though, are just so blatantly crappy...the anti-intellectual elitist in me wishes everyone here were like my slacker friends.

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