it is rather staggering that a campaign of one-directional mail has been going on for four years without me even catching a whiff of it. i refer to mail from the university addressed to my parents. i knew my grades and the tuition bill came home, but until i sat down tonight to clear out drawers i never knew they received so many newsletters and calendars and postcards and such from the parents' program, and letters from half a dozen university offices congratulating them on their daughter's admissions and informing them of mid-year tuition hikes, and a dozen other brochures and flyers plus the arts and sciences magazine which *i* never got. in fact it miffs me exceedingly that i never seem to get mail from the university when i need to know anything i.e. didn't get my orientation package, didn't get graduation information, but my parents who live over here get a whole bunch of irrelevant information (corner meal plan? off-grounds housing? responsible computing? why do they care?) - which my dad reads and then carefully puts away, and which i am throwing out relentlessly. i found a letter from the office of the dean of students signed by all 9 of the deans! how ridiculously superfluous and unctuous!! and rifing through the papers i also turned up my acceptance letter - dated march 19, 1999. reading it over it struck me as somewhat officious and fulsome. i think then i was - flattered - in a - worried way. somewhat of a - what should i do - now that i've fooled them - can i make good on what i promise to be. i suppose i did all right afterall.