Smart Kids Cut...

... themselves, apparently. A recent survey reported that an unbelievable 17% of Cornell and Princeton students have practiced some form of self-mutilation (and not the cool belly-piercing variety), and that 70% of those have hurt themselves more than once, largely due the pressure of living up to Ivy League expectations. Interesting timing given the recent report about how far America is lagging behind China and India in churning out engineers. Perhaps we're first trying to catch up to Japan where overtaxed students, always a step ahead of Americans, move straight to suicide.

I had a friend in high school, also very bright, who used to cut herself. She once told me that she went through three stages: pain, attention and blood. During the first, she cut herself in places that would be slow to heal and a constant burden, like the bottoms of her feet. During the attention phase, she would cut her lips, scalp or arms - the obvious spots. I'm not sure which body parts were employed for maximum blood output but I'm sure it was gross. Eventually, she just stopped only to eventually become a snowboarding enthusiast living in the middle of Nowhere, MidWest with her husband.

None of which is nearly as sexy as the Secretary where Maggie Gyllenhaal's character cuts herself with the sharpened feet of a porcelin ballerina... Or is that just sexy to me?

Ultimately, the point is: given that the primary purpose of higher education is to prove to potential employers that you have the ability to learn what they want to you to know, should education be so stressful?