My mother is fond of telling me that if I'd just stuck with band I could have gotten a full ride to college.
She's probably right.
Yes I was a band nerd. Only not so much of the nerd part.
I played Alto Sax, Tenor Sax and Oboe. Depending on which season it was, concert or marching.
But I was, er still am, a bit of a perfectionist, and the first ime I made 2nd chair during try outs instead of 1st I got a bit angry. It didn't matter that I was a Freshman and 1st chair was a Senior, someone with 3 years more experience than me. Being in band eventually became more of a frustration than a joy so I quit my Junior year.
Ok to be more accurate I wasn't allowed to quit, by either my mom or the band directors, so I started skipping practice so they would kick me out.
I know.. I'm such a rebel... Grr!!
Not sure what the point of sharing that with you was, except that talking about scholarships brought it to mind.
So moving on with today's topic.
Free money!!!
For school that is.
I didn't pursue any opportunities for scholarships my first go around in college, but this time I'm older, more educated and more broke, so I'm researching all avenues and options for financial assistance.
One of the scholarship competitions I found was from the Ayn Rand Institute. You read this book, Atlas Shrugged, then write an essay on one of 3 questions. Typewritten, double spaced and between 800 and 1600 words in length.
Sounds easy right?
Check out the book.
According to what I was able to dig up on the web it supposedly only weighs 3.3lbs. I call BS. I could stop my car from rolling down hill with this thing! It's 2 inches thick, 1168 pages long. And we're not talking large print either
It's not that I have a problem with reading books this big. I read the unabridged uncut version of Steven King's The Stand for crying out loud. That book is big enough to use as a bench.
No it's not the size of the book that's the issue. It's that I only have 6 days to read it in. I just read about the contest on Sunday, and checked the book out of the library yesterday. The deadline is Sept 17th. Today is the 11th. So that means I need to read about 195 pages a day, then write an essay that's well written and intriguing enough to win me a scholarship.
Normally I wouldn't be totally freaked out and overwhelmed at the impossibility of the task at hand. I mean I read fairly quickly. I can easily read a 200-300 page romance novel in the few hours from the time I get home from work till I go to bed.
The problem with doing that for the next 6 days is that I work my second job on at least 3 of them. Which means no time to read at all for 2 complete days and half of a 3rd. So I'm down to 3 and a half days to read this door stop and write an intelligent, thought provoking paper on it.
GAHHHHH!!!!!!!!
It's OK.. I CAN do this.. Take a deep breath.. breathe innnnn... and outtttt.
Remind me to start looking at scholarships for NEXT year as soon as I finish this dang book!
On another note - I just found out that Atlas Shrugged is the next movie that Angelina Jolie is going to be in so I'm stoked to read the book now!
Too bad the movie didn't come out before this dang contest.
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