now taking all wagers

This is what happens when you fill out your college transfer application in between loads of laundry, from 3 to 5 a.m., while on your third pack of cigarettes and FOURTH consecutive liter of diet coke. Of the day.

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SHORT ANSWER | PLEASE BRIEFLY ELABORATE (150 WORDS OR FEWER) ON ONE OF YOUR ACTIVITIES (EXTRACURRICULAR, PERSONAL, OR WORK EXPERIENCE):

I consider myself extremely lucky. Being raised bilingual and therefore being able to work as a translator has had a huge effect on the way I live my life. Because I can do it from anywhere, this ‘job’ has afforded me the freedom to live where I please, to travel, and to manage my own time. The only downside, really, is that the process of translation itself, especially to and from two languages (and cultures) that are so incredibly different, has a tendency to suck all the moisture out of one’s brain. At least, that’s how it feels; what, if any, physiological changes actually occur in the brain of a working translator remains a mystery.

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You can bet your ass this is the only application they’re gonna get that so bravely and candidly addresses the issue of brain moisture. (Or so aptly illustrates the applicant’s general lack thereof.)

It remains to be seen whether that’s a good thing or just really, really, really not at all good in any way, shape, or form.

I’m not going to inflict my actual ‘personal statement’ on the world at large. I will, however, say this — it carries on in a similar vein, it is 1250 words over the required minimum, and while I did not revisit the potentially controversial but undeniably fertile topic of brain moisture, I did use the term “super-strength” and invent the phrase “priority-panic.” At one point, even as I physically shook with the horror of it, I watched myself type: “It was a complicated time.”

Yeeeep.

So.

Who wants to put money down that the admissions committee falls all over itself come spring to make me a shiny happy new member of the Reed student body? Anyone?

Anyone?

No? Not so much?

Probably a wise choice.

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Man. I wish my laundry would just DRY already.