{"id":676,"date":"2007-05-01T04:50:44","date_gmt":"2007-05-01T09:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=676"},"modified":"2022-01-02T07:38:22","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T12:38:22","slug":"cruising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=676","title":{"rendered":"Cruising"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"route-66.gif\"Michael Winerip’s touching and elegant essay, “Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard”<\/a> is the most sensible piece of writing on today’s hypercompetitive college admissions game that I’ve read in a long time.<\/p>\n

———————————————<\/p>\n

If brains were transmissions, then mine would be a four-speed manual that I’ve red-lined and ground to bits in the quest for maximum performance. Number One Son<\/a>, on the other hand, has a silky smooth six that he rarely shifts into overdrive. Instead, he cruises down the highway in fifth gear, the top down and the wind in his hair, making good time and covering a lot of ground, but not so fast and so far that he can’t take in the view and enjoy the glory days.<\/p>\n

Early in his high school career, he noticed the hectic and harried pace of his Ivy League-bound classmates and decided that he would rather cruise at a different speed and and take a more scenic route. He worked hard, but he played hard too: soccer, Ultimate, banging out “Free Bird” on Guitar Hero, Powderpuff cheerleading<\/a>, road trips to T-town followed by late night poker games, an eleven-on-a-scale-of-ten senior prom, long mountain hikes and plenty of burnt-orange sunsets—hanging out with friends for no particular reason at all.<\/p>\n

I’ll admit to thinking at times, Can’t you go any faster? If I had a brain like yours, oh, the places I would go and the things I would see!
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

But he knew what he was doing all along, that boy, and he was right; cruising down the highway with the top down and the wind in his hair–iPod blaring–leaving behind a trail of memories longer than Route 66 and few, if any, regrets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Winerip’s touching and elegant essay, “Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard” is the most sensible piece of writing on today’s hypercompetitive college admissions game that I’ve read in a long time. ——————————————— If brains…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,48,54,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-family","category-nostalgia","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9615,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/9615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}