The first day of classes has begun and my muse has visited me more in the last 10 hours than in the last four months. Please be patient.

As for the President. You should know that I am referring to the President of colleges around America, versus the actual President. I capitalize President to emphasize the name, in this case, el Presidente will be used in the same way that some people refer to employers as the "MAN".

Now for the background information. This semester I decided to go out for the Campus Safety job at my school and SURPRISE! I was accepted and brought on staff. Another development this semester is that my school accepted too many male students on campus and had to create quick housing for them. They transformed lobbies and sunrooms of residence halls into Freshman/ Transfer housing and even gave away what used to be the hockey house to Freshman. Some of the rooms created barely met Safety codes when inspected and after seeing the rooms I got to thinking.

Because I joined safety I was required to go through extensive training for everything you can imagine. One of those things is fire safety, including how to use a fire extinguisher and how to safely deal with fire emergencies.

Put the two together and you've got an intellectual safety officer pondering the safety of the dormitories she's living in.

If you've ever been in your standard dorm you'd know that most only have two outlets. That's four plug ins for the entirety of the room, which usually houses TWO students. So you get two plugs and your roomie gets two plugs.

Okay, now the fire hazard part comes into play. Students bring extension cords and power strips to try and maximize the usage of the outlet. This often leads to excessive voltage being ran through the outlet into the room, sometimes it even overloads the breaker and the fuse has to be reset.

So let's do the math. 2 students, 4 plug ins,  1000000 things to plug in. Hm....I wonder where the problem lies. Colleges don't want to put in more outlets because A) It costs more B) they'd have to rewire ...

More putting two and two together if you please, colleges don't want to spend the money on more outlets that would make the rooms safer (due to the lack of extension cords and power strips) because... they'd rather pay for fire damages?

It sounds like they're setting students up for fires, granted it is the students over loading the outlets but...when you've got 4 plug ins plus a microwave and a mini fridge that only leaves two open wall plugs.

You know that they're going to plug things in... rather than make it safer they just keep warning about the dangers of fire and having a hazardous environment for a room.

So in conclusion, if you're dorm catches fire just tell everyone the President said the wall outlet was too expensive, too bad it cost less than the laptop, television, mini fridge, microwave, bed, cell phone, clothes, books, pictures and other personal items that melted to the walls.

Love,

Miki

Hello again!

Just recently, being the *straightens collar* academic entreprenuer that I am, I've been receiving e-mails from a man who works with one of those scholarship websites, you know the ones where you put in information about yourself and they match you with eligible scholarships. He's started a series of e-mails to his subscribers about how to best write scholarship essays, what types of things to include, the types of things you should avoid, and so on and so forth. Rather than just delete them, which was my first reaction, I've actually been keeping up with his writings and I've found them to be more interesting than I would have first imagined.

It's funny, I should have known I would like him the moment he said "I'm taking the kid gloves off", because I mean honestly, isn't it time someone did?

I remember when I graduated from high school, I wasn't exactly the top of my class or the most popular girl in school, but I thought I managed to survive prison pretty well. They told you repeatedly the importance of good grades and being well rounded and all that jazz. How funny when I receive an e-mail from this guy saying "Guess what? Your GPA doesn't matter. Guess what else...neither do your school activities!" I have to tell you I sure did get a laugh out of that, especially when I thought back to the other people in my grade that were so hung up on their school work or their sports or whatever.

I mean having those things are great, but I always had a feeling that they wouldn't do much for me later. Turns out I might get the last laugh after all.

Then of course this guy goes into your scholarship essays, what should you write? Don't write your sob stories he says. What's the first thing a teacher will tell you when you're a senior in high school writing a scholarship essay, "Talk about any obstacles you've overcome."

At this point I'm really beginning to wonder about the education kids here in America are receiving. Seems to me that everything so far that you're being told to do nearly gurantees you'll never see any of the money out there available.

Here's where it gets really good. Scholarship Screwup #4, being vague and selfish about your future. So when you're told to write about your future, what do your teachers tell you? Write about what you'd like to do but keep in mind... things happen. Do these two pieces of information seem to contradict each other in your mind, cause they sure seem to in mine.

Second part of #4 that seems to go against what you're told is that they say don't be selfish about your future. Okay. So when you're choosing a career most people say look at careers that will provide for you and that you like. The bottom line is $ signs though. Don't be selfish? Uhm....let the contradictions begin again.

After all the tips I've received so far I have to say that I think my high school education, the last part of it at least, was tinged with terrible suggestions for my future. I can only imagine what other kids are being told?

Love,
Miki