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Apparently at 7pm this evening Northwestern went live with their regular decisions admissions. For the class of 2010. While this is scary enough in its own right, the real amazement is in just how much things have changed in the last 7 years.

When I applied back in '99 there was no such thing as an online application. I was lucky enough to score a cd, from the princeton review I believe, that had applications that could be opened in adobe. Some people actually had to pay to get the cd. Of course, all it really meant was that the applications could be printed out at home instead of waiting for the catalog to arrive. Only those who somehow had a full copy of Adobe could add fields and actually type directly onto the applications.

The following year marked the first real foray into online applications for many schools. Still though, acceptances came as a big envelope in the mail, not as an email or through a website.

By the time I graduated, a majority of applications were being submitted online, and email acceptances went out for the first time (to select people who had said in their application they wanted it sent via email).

And now, three years later, most applications are done online. Students know down to the minute when they can hop on the web to find out if they got in, and kids are scrambling to find internet cafes in spring break locales just to check if they got into a school, rather than waiting an hour for a phone call on the omnipresent cell phones from a parent who 'just couldn't wait' for them to get home.

And yet despite the changes, the feelings are the same. The desire for acceptance, and the hope that there will be a place for them somewhere. The class of 2010 is undoubtably more connected with each other already than any previous ones (as evidenced by the growing number of facebook groups solely for its members), but they will still all be in the same scramble to find friends, a companion, a niche, when they arrive on campus this fall.
10:22 PM 0 comments

 
As I have been going about my job search, I have made a fair number of connections with people in all areas. Today, for the first time, I got hit by one of those rare events whereby the same name gets passed on in two seperate ways through completely different channels. This time it was a contact of my father, who also happens to be one of the speakers at a networking event I was planning on attending this Thursday.

Overall I think I am much more focused now, and really have a sense of what I want to be doing with myself as I proceed down my twisted career path. It did take a little time, and a lot of self reflection, and a few helpful nudges from different people along the way, but in the end I've come through with a better understanding of both myself and how I can go about achieving what I want out of life. Now I just have to go get it.
9:34 PM 1 comments

 
Having recently signed up with google's adsense program (some of you might note the ads on the top of the page now), I happened to come across an article today giving the top paying keywords to use with the program. Interestingly enough, it pays a lot of money to be someone who writes about asbestos (Four of the top seven terms contain the word mesothelioma). Also near the top are your typical ambulance chaser/lawyer search terms like 'personal injury' and 'car accident'. In addition, there are plenty of tax attorney related terms, as well as your odd mortgage reconsolidation. And of course who could leave out our good buddy the IRS.
5:43 PM 0 comments

 
And to celebrate Purim as well, we'll have an almost Pie-like recipe for hamentashen. You can use any filling you like, although prune, poppy, apricot and rasberry all work well. Some people use chocolate kisses as well.

Ingredients:
4 c. flour
3 tsp. baking powder
3 eggs
1 c. sugar
6 oz. butter
1/4 c. orange juice

Directions:
Put eggs and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Add butter. Mix with mixer. Combine baking powder with flour. Add to bowl a little a time, and mix in. when it seems to be getting a little thick, add a little orange juice. Keep going until the dough starts catching in the beater, then take out and knead the dough the rest of the way by hand.

Refrigerate dough for 2 hours.

Dust a flour board with a little bit of flour. Roll a piece of the dough out on flour board. Take a four inch glass, turn it upside down and cut the dough with the lip of glass to make a 4 inch circle of dough. Fill cookie with chosen filling. Squeeze dough up and across to form three cornered hamantashen.

Cover a cookie sheet with tinfoil and bake hamentashen in 400 degree oven about 15 or 20 minutes. (Check after 15 minutes) Hamentashen should be golden.

Makes about 3 dozen hamentashen.
5:53 PM 1 comments