I have been obsessively reading every piece that has come out about the college bribery scandal.  Not the petty ones combing through Felicity Huffman’s social media postings, but the ones from reputable news sources detailing the allegations.  Oh my G-d.

I am stunned and not stunned at the same time.  We know stuff like this happens.  Maybe not always on this level, but we know that people make major donations to universities for the sole purpose of having their child considered for admission.  So paying someone to change their child’s answers on the SAT… I can see that happening.  And at the same time, oh my G-d!

I think I can’t stop reading about it because the whole situation fills me with fear.  Not that we’ll lose our values and pay $500,000 to have our children pretend to be on the crew team, but because people who do this will be in the mix when we apply to college in a few years.  [I know, we can pause for an aside for a few seconds.  Remember when I started this blog and the twins were still drinking bottles?  Yeah, now my hair is grey and they are applying to college in a few years.]  Not literally these people because these people are involved in a major bribery scandal.  But people like these people who are willing to spend enormous sums of money to get a coveted spot in a freshman class.

The admissions process (and life in general) is already NOT a level playing field.  My kids have an advantage over another person’s kids because I am willing to buy them SAT prep books and encourage them to do them over the summer.  That’s an advantage.  Being in a strong school system, knowing how to navigate that system, reading every piece of literature that comes home from the school so I’m always informed — all advantages my kids have.  I can list these all day as well as all the disadvantages my kids have in comparison to other kids in the area, but the point is that college admissions aren’t balanced and fair.  Education isn’t balanced and fair.  And then you hear about something like this…

What do you think?

“Pyt” is Danish for something akin to “oh well”:

Pyt is usually expressed as an interjection in reaction to a daily hassle, frustration or mistake. It most closely translates to the English sayings, “Don’t worry about it,” “stuff happens,” or “oh, well.”

But what I really loved is not the word but the way it’s used: “At its core, it’s about accepting and resetting. It’s used as a reminder to step back and refocus rather than overreact. Instead of assigning blame, it’s a way to let go and move on.”

Accept and reset.  Adding a pause into a moment and deciding something is not worth getting upset about.  Taking a beat to breathe and reframe.  It’s not just that they have the word — it’s that they put it into action.  It’s a mentality, a reassurance, a comma breaking up a sentence about life.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I am pro-name tag.  I prefer the kind that go around your neck vs. the ones that clip on, but other than that, I am pro-any-name-tag-all-the-time.  365 days per year.

It is embarrassing when you didn’t hear someone’s name and now too much time has passed to ask it again.  It is equally embarrassing when you’ve forgotten someone’s name you should remember, and frustrating when you’re staring at someone and you know you know but you have no clue where you know them from.

And then there are all the other added benefits:

Nametags give people lots of space to be called what they’d actually like to be called. If the name that you’ve been given at birth feels like not the best fit, nametags would give you the opportunity to adjust as you please, minimal explanation required. (You can even include your preferred pronouns—there’s room!)

Are you also pro-name tag?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

I’m reading Liane Moriarty’s new(ish) book, Nine Perfect Strangers.  It’s set at a health resort.  The story doesn’t exactly hang together, but I’m enjoying most of the characters.

One of the caveats of the resort is that you need to hand over any devices.  It’s ten, screen-free days.  Frances, one of the guests at the resort, laments the idea of giving up the Internet for 240 hours.  On page 106, Moriarty writes, “How was she going to cope for ten days without instant answers to idle questions?”

That is exactly what I would miss about the Internet.

I could stay off of Facebook for ten days: I love you all, but I could skip reading your updates for ten days knowing that Facebook’s algorithm ensures that I never see every post anyway.  I’m going to miss a bunch whether I’m on or not.

I could not write in this space or read someone else’s blog for ten days.  I would miss writing and reading, but I could always journal and catch up on my feed reader when I return.  I wouldn’t miss television shows or movies or games.

But I’ve grown dependent on instant information.  On being able to look up the answer to any random question that bubbles up in my mind.  I get so frustrated when I hit a question and there’s no easy answer, or I’m trying to find someone online and I can’t.

For me, that would be the hardest part about giving up the Internet.  What would be your hardest part: idle questions, FOMO, a feeling of disconnection, or… ?

Tomorrow is Random Act of Kindness Day for Thomas, a yearly event created by one of our own.  Kristin was a blogger for a long time in the ALI blogosphere.  Her son, Thomas, was born on March 9th and died on March 10th.  Every year, she asks people to do kindness in his name, filling the world with the goodness he would have contributed himself if he had lived.  I love this idea.

It doesn’t have to be big.  It can be as small as moving through your day thinking about ways you can make it a little bit better for the people around you.

As always, I’m looking to do good in Thomas’s name tomorrow.  Hope you’ll join along, too.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “#MicroblogMondays – I’m a Writer” (An Engineer Becomes a Mom)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Dwelling in Possibility has a gorgeous, bittersweet post about loss.  She is remembering her child, who would have been 21 years old this week, and connecting that loss to the loss of her husband three years ago and sending her living children into the world.  She writes, “This year, though, feels loaded. When I realized the date, and how many years it has been, I started thinking about what it feels like to launch a child into the world … It will be quiet and lonely in this big house all alone. His father was supposed to be here to muffle some of that quiet. But he’s with Ari.”  It is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read.

I missed this post last week, but The Road Less Travelled had a post about finding her tribe with a listserv of other parents trying again after a loss and losing that tribe as the listserv shuts down.  Even if she hadn’t posted there in years, it was a big part of her life when she needed it most.  It’s a sweet goodbye to support that held her up during a hard time.

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ has a post about divides in a larger community, using the divide that exists between people who refer to animals as a fur-baby and those who don’t to prove a point: “Perhaps we should be a wee bit careful when we try to speak for our group. We’re not all the same.”  It’s a great post about how ideas are not one-size-fits-all and that sometimes what we’re taking offense at may not have had offensive intentions behind the words.  It’s a thought-provoking post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Please be kind tomorrow.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between March 1st and 8th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.