Spell me some drivel

I was talking to a friend of mine who recently got admissions into Grad school, here in the states. It reminded me of the time that I was trying to sail in that same boat.

One of my class mates, M, from engineering school was also applying for admissions, the same time that I was.

It was a big cause for headache at that time. So big that we called each other every night and discussed how badly we were tormented by the long process.

Like any other person hoping to make her/his way to grad school, we had shortlisted 5 schools.
A lot of thought had to go into this process, by rule of thumb, this was the most important part.
Everyone I had spoken to had said in a deep and somewhat sad voice -- "it all depends on where you apply".

Yeah, their point was well taken, I spent about half a rats ass time in deciding which schools I should apply to.

M tried to tell me over and over that I should spend more time in deciding as it was the most important part.

I always thought the most important part was where I'd want to be.

My criteria were simple--a cheap and warm place. The rest of the mumbo jumbo was not important to me. US News ratings, jobs after graduating -- bleh. For some reason I didn't care. I was interested in an education, a new way of life etc. I tried to explain my choices to him, but I doubt he got my theory of admissions being a load of probabilistic bull shit.

Somehow M liked to argue about it -- he would come up with something like -- in my school 1000 out of 1000 people can spell the word Mississippi (Note: I had to use spell check :)). In your school 1 out of 1000 can actually read English. If you do the numbers people in my school are way smarter than people in your school.

I maintained that while it was statistically true statement, only a mentally incapacitated individual could make a judgement about intelligence by mere numbers.

I could choose to be good or I could choose a good school and boast that I was in fact good, by association.

I never did change my lowly choice of schools. M did not either, he chose to apply to the top schools.

He always made it a point to call them and enquire religiously about his admission status.

The one night he called me, he was a bit disturbed and more tormented than usual.

I asked him what the matter was. He started to tell me his tale---He had called a particular school asked for his admission status. The person on the other end did not get his name right, so she asked him to spell it.

He then started to spell his name -- A as in Apple blah blah

Turns out his name had the letter K in it. So M quickly said K as in Kewl.

The lady didn't understand and asked him what kewl was. M tried to cover up his gaffe by saying something like "Don't you chat online? You should know things like Kewl, GTG, BRB etc.

The lady said she was sorry she didn't understand him, she wished him good luck and then hung up on him.

I told him I thought he was a smart guy and that he would make it, even if he couldn't spell.

Years later, come present time-I still think about it and laugh.