Weblog
11/30/01 03:10 PM: Even the good lie
This may sound a bit strange, but it really made my day today when I received conclusive evidence that good people, even good teachers, lie. My eleventh grade U.S. History teacher, Mr. Martin, is probably the finest teacher I know. I had him write me a letter of recommendation about a month ago. I wanted him to write me a recommendation to send to Georgetown, so I asked early, in October, in order to meet the Nov. 1 deadline. Anyway, I asked two more teachers to write recommendations for me. I only need one or two recommendations for each of the schools I’m applying to, and all three teachers do the generic, all-purpose sort of letter, so it doesn’t really make much of a difference what letters I send where. I just though I’d mix and match for variety’s sake. The second teacher just wrote one a couple days ago, and the third has yet to write one. I was planning on sending the third teacher’s letter to Washington College, I guess because I thought the other two letters would be better and that’s where I want to go least–I don’t want to go there at all, in fact. Anyway, I realize I could send any of them there, but I had decided in my head through some strange process to send that one. But he has yet to write it, and the deadline is Dec. 1. It is a rather small college and I’m sure I’d get in just fine even if my recommendation was late, but I decided to go down to the guidance office and have them send the second teacher’s recommendation so it would be on time. I knew that said teacher had written the letter and delivered it to my guidance counselor because I happened to run into her while she was on her way to the guidance office the other day. So when I went to ask for a copy of it, my counselor could not find one. Like I said, it doesn’t really matter, so I said Mr. Martin’s letter would be fine, and she already had several copies on file on official school letterhead and whatnot. I told her that it was supposed to be postmarked by tomorrow, so she suggested that I mail it myself because it wouldn’t get to the post office until Monday at the earliest otherwise. So she just handed me a copy of it. I’m pretty sure students aren’t supposed to see the actual recommendations, but how was I to resist peeking at what my favorite teacher had to say about me? So I read it before I dropped it off at the post office. It contained all the expected compliments. Then it said that I was an “ardent naturalist.” Interesting choice of words. That was followed by a line about me being an “instrumental member of the AHS Environmental Club,” or something to that effect. Curious, I thought. He did write this at the last minute. He must have meant to say “History Club,” I thought. I read on. Blah, blah, more compliments. Then it said that my bill was nominated for best bill at the Cayuga County Model Congress. That was a bit of an embellishment. My bill was, in reality, not nominated for any such thing. Then again, that was likely due to the fact that I did not write a bill and did not even participate in any Model Congress. Hahahaha. That blows me away. What a card, that Mr. Martin.
