Baths

Last night at the baths some of us were complaining about how much we were paying for our children’s education. It’s somewhere in the vicinity of $10,000 a year, even at the state colleges. One woman told us about a program called the ‘Santa Barbara Fund’ that pays for tuition ..but it turns out you have to be like a 2nd generation Santa Barbara native. Someone else said that even with a 4.0 GPA ..it’s almost impossible to get in these days. I mentioned that a lot of students applying to UC can overcome a low GPA .. even poor SAT scores ..by writing a compelling essay. Something describing some kind of hardship they had to deal with while growing up. That made another guy laugh and say it’s hard to imagine what kind of hardship anyone would have growing up in Santa Barbara. My first thought was to tell him that he’d be surprised, but decided against it and instead I said “Hey, colleges reward creativity ..” which made everyone laugh and start making up stuff:

"Mom and I are living in a station wagon down by the lagoon .."
“I had to take care of my ailing aunt Edna after school ..”
“I immigrated from Peru with 12 brothers and sisters
..mom worked as a housekeeper to put us through school”
“My parents are hippies and don’t believe in traditional schooling
..I ran a food co-op growing up”
“My parents were killed in a fire somewhere on the 14th floor ..”

Around this time I had to say goodnight and leave ..and had to laugh. Nobody noticed ..I could still hear them making up stories while I was walking away.