i used to never be able to understand how people could have so much darn school spirit. in fact, i often found it rather annoying.
now i've found that i have become one of them.
over spring break, my family took off on a trek around the world. well, not really, just delaware, new york, maryland, pennsylvania, and illinois.
at upenn, i visited alex yang. they have tighter security than airports up there. my family wanted to see what his dorm room looked like, and even at 3 pm in the afternoon all of us had to sign in with photo ID. i noticed that the guy working at the front desk had a USC jacket on, so instead of giving him my driver's license, i gave him my UT photo ID. for some reason when i'm around people with USC stuff on i get this overwhelming sense of superiority -- is that wrong?
then at the university of chicago, which is the possible future college home of my sister, we sat down next to some random girl for lunch. she started sharing with my sister all the good stuff about u of chicago. she mentioned all the gothic architecture, the nobel peace prizes, the science department, the economics department, the museums, the liberal arts, etc etc etc, all with me sitting right next to her. as if this wasn't "bad" enough, right before each of her arguments (it seemed like she was trying to start one), she would say something like "well, no offense to UT, but..."
she just kept going on and on about how great the school was, and at some point in the onslaught my mom turned to me and said, "maybe you should share some good things about UT to try to persuade her [my sister] to not choose chicago."
i told her i didn't really need to say anything. i mean, the school really speaks for itself. i don't know a single person who goes or went to UT and did not love the school like mad. looking back, it's interesting how everything worked out with me not getting accepted into upenn, northwestern, and whatever other schools i applied to because now, i wouldn't trade a semester at UT for anything, and my sister knows that quite well.
i mean, if i were to really share all, or even just some of the reasons why she should go to UT, that just wouldn't be fair at all to the other schools, right?
after all, who am i to decide whether she goes to the best school in the world or some dreary, boring university in the windy city?
but in an attempt to allow other prospective students to the university of chicago to know the greatness of the university of texas, my brother and i decided to leave them a couple subliminal messages. you know, just to get their mind on the possibility of becoming a longhorn. so in the administration building, there were a few computers in the main lobby, so we changed the desktop backgrounds to a picture of the monkeyballers and a beautiful burnt orange UT sign.
hey, a little propaganda never hurt nobody -- hook' em \m/
