Make-up blog: Pandora's Box

Prometheus had recently given fire to humans without Zeus's permission, and Zeus wanted revenge. So he had the gods craft for him the first woman out of clay, and named her Pandora. He presented Pandora to Prometheus's brother, Epimetheus, as a gift. But of course, because Zeus is a bit of a jerk, there was a trick. He gave Pandora a small locked box (actually a jar in the original myth?) and gave Epimetheus the key, telling them to never open the box. He naturally expected either Prometheus or Epimetheus to eventually open it, because of dang human curiosity. But Epimetheus refused to open the box (jar?), even at his wife's pleading. So one night, Pandora stole the key from her husband and opened the box jar miscellaneous container. Whoops. Everything evil in the world rushed out of the jar, like crime, war, racism, and the Tea Party. All that was left in the box was Hope, and when a distraught Pandora showed Epimetheus what she'd done, Hope fluttered out of the box and went out into the world as well.

An evil I'd like to SQUELCH (love that word) is college application fees. The whole system is just greedy and ridiculous! "Oh, sorry, we refuse to look at your application unless you give us a ton of money. What's that, you weren't accepted? Sorry, no refunds!" Apparently that is a thing that only happens in America. People in other countries are shocked to hear that high school students and their families are basically extorted by universities because the admissions offices have us by the balls. It wouldn't be so bad if you're only applying to a couple schools, but I'm applying to seven, costing between $60 and $90 each. I'm not dirt poor so I can't get any fee waivers, but we're not rich either, so spending over $500 dollars just to apply to colleges (not counting the cost of sending 3 ACT reports and 7 SAT reports) kinda hurts. Plus, since I'm obviously only going to be attending one school, the vast majority of that money is just pointlessly pouring down the drain. It's pointless, greedy, and downright evil extortion.