1993 for me. My prom dress was vintage - a goddess gown that I bought for a whopping $14, but it was $40 for the alterations! I was the only girl in yellow in a sea of black and jewel tones. My best friend wore the dress the next year, and it's been borrowed a couple times since then. It was a good investment.
This was interesting to me, because I grew up in Fairfax County and knew the school burgers had significant soy content. I went vegetarian as a teen in the early 90s, and when Boca (soy) Burgers came out later in the decade, I tried one and couldn't finish it, because the soy flavor reminded me so strongly of the meat burgers I ate in elementary school. I always stuck with Gardenburger and Natural Touch.
Having grown up near D.C. during the Cold War, a memorable science lesson was the day we calculated these sorts of things for our little suburb as if a bomb had been dropped on the park in the center of the Pentagon, which was always known colloquially as "ground zero."
I grew up in the Washington area, and joined Fairfax County's gifted program the year I became old enough. In the gifted program, were led to believe that we were somehow better than the "regular" kids, that we were by definition high achievers, and that we were going to go on to have great jobs in life. This is a lot to lay on a kid in elementary school, and it took a long, long time to learn that none of this was necessarily true.
Anyway, I posted this article on facebook yesterday, and a bunch of my fellow former gifted children chimed in to agree with it and the above. Being told how smart we were did us a disservice - when things didn't come easy to us, we felt like we couldn't let it be known, because then we'd be revealed not to be smart. And when we got out of school into the real world, it turned out that just being naturally somewhat smart was not at all enough.
What's funny is that all these years, I thought I was the only one who had had a number done on them by all the things we were told as "gifted" children - but it turns out a great many of my peers felt the same. I got a lot out of the program - I wouldn't not join it, given the choice again - but I hope the kids in it these days aren't being fed such deleterious messages.
I think a number of the people commenting here might not realize what the Rhodes Scholarship actually is. It's not money for college; it's the opportunity for post-graduate study at the University of Oxford. It's basically a golden ticket - an entree to whatever path you want to follow in your life.
That said, I understand why he'd choose to play in the game. He can apply another year, and sadly, depending on what he might achieve in professional sports, he might be better compensated there than post-Rhodes.
Anyway, I posted this article on facebook yesterday, and a bunch of my fellow former gifted children chimed in to agree with it and the above. Being told how smart we were did us a disservice - when things didn't come easy to us, we felt like we couldn't let it be known, because then we'd be revealed not to be smart. And when we got out of school into the real world, it turned out that just being naturally somewhat smart was not at all enough.
What's funny is that all these years, I thought I was the only one who had had a number done on them by all the things we were told as "gifted" children - but it turns out a great many of my peers felt the same. I got a lot out of the program - I wouldn't not join it, given the choice again - but I hope the kids in it these days aren't being fed such deleterious messages.
That said, I understand why he'd choose to play in the game. He can apply another year, and sadly, depending on what he might achieve in professional sports, he might be better compensated there than post-Rhodes.
DING DING DING DING!