Well, hell. If Reed cost just as much as Ohio University, I'd go there in a second, but it doesn't. It would cost me thirty-some thousand a year, so unless financial aid really comes through (and it won't) it's probably not going to happen. That sucks, but that's how it is. A lot of Reed's idealism can be exported to other places. It won't be the same as being in the center of it, but that's alright. Independent learning is just that, independent. As Robert Pirsig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the real University has no walls. It is just a set of ideals and priorities. Still, Reed is as close to an ideal school as I have ever seen or envisioned. I'll take some time and try to work it out, but I didn't get any money last year when they took me, and I doubt I will this year, unless I start screwing with the IRS. Which is no good.

There are only two reasonable solutions to my dilemma. First, you people, who are reading my web page, could start a trust fund for me so that when I graduate I can pay back loans from Reed. If you do, make sure there's at least 10k in it by 2005 or don't even bother with it. Secondly, I could go to Reed, borrow everything, and then join the army afterwards, which I'm thinking about anyhow. They pay loans back because they adore college graduates who want to work for them (there aren't many). That would be ironic considering the anti-military-industrial-cultural-imperialist attitude of many Reedies, but who cares. I just want the rigorous education and the location and the freedom and all the other people looking for basically the same thing. The question is whether or not Reed's undergrad experience is substantially better than OU's in a real, quantifiable way. I guess it is, because in the land of academia, Reed is a sort of holy grail for grad school applications. Just the name carries a huge amount of weight to anywhere, and not in a "Yes, I went to Harvard" way, which is pretty nice. Statistically Reed outdoes the ivy league schools in Ph.D percentage and graduate fellowships, but that raises the question of what I want to do with my life and whether or not I want to/need to/should go to graduate school anyway. After all, I have to join the army to go there in the first place!

Well that's all I've got for now. Still an interesting place, I would definitley reccommend it to anyone looking for an honest-to-god intellectual school. Also, Portland, despite all the rain, is a nice place. I think. And there's an ocean. Yay!

In a shocking turn of events, Bruce Wayne has relocated the Batcave to Portland International Airport, just across from the gate where my flight arrived. To my dissapointment, Alfred was not about.