For once in my life, I’m going to stop complaining about what is wrong with the world and start complaining about what is wrong with my life.

No, none of that “I’m fat and hideous and today my boyfriend of 3 hours dumped me because I’m fat and hideous” BS. This goes deeper than that. It goes into my brain. Wow, that’s so deep.

See, lately I’ve been looking at scholarship opportunities. Half of the scholarships I don’t qualify for because I don’t have a GPA (my school simply does pass-or-no-pass, none of that letter grade stuff). Another eighth I don’t qualify for because I am not of the proper race (where’s the white people scholarships, people?). Another fourth I don’t qualify for because I do no community service or any of that. I would, but no place around here will hire a kid my age, even if it’s not for paid work. I call BS on this in addition to the “fat and hideous” stuff.

That leaves an eighth of all available scholarships available that I can apply for. I have no interest in writing an essay about a cure for poverty, because my family is nearing it as it is, and if I had an idea for a cure for it, you’d be damn sure I would be doing it, not writing about it. Those remaining that I qualify for? There’s maybe 5 of them. I applied for those yesterday. Hoping for a response.

So what is wrong with scholarships? In principle, nothing. Free money to go live across the country and hang out on beautifully landscaped college campuses and eat ramen noodles. But in practice?

1. There aren’t any scholarships for white people. Black people, sure. Asian people, sure. Hispanics? Why not? But are there any German people scholarships? Any Irish people scholarships? Surely there’s an Italian people scholarship. No? Come on, scholarship people. You’re trying to make it easier on those who have endured racism in the past, but now you’re putting us white people through racism.
2. Many scholarships require you to have done community service/volunteer work. Many people have access to such opportunities. I do not. There ain’t a market for teenager work around here, volunteer or not. It’s not my fault, are you going to deny me free money because of it?

Actually, that’s all I can think of. But both of those things are limiting my options. When I grow up, I’m going to invent a scholarship for white people with limited opportunities. I’m going to help Katies everywhere go to their dream school (or at the very least, the community college down the street). How will I fund this? I don’t know. Rob a bank?

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 5:36 pm and is filed under School, Rantings, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are closed. Deal with it.