prospectus

I like the word Prospectus. 'Prospect : Us' it says. I don't know where it comes from, the wordroot or anything, but it's more interesting to speculate. Maybe it comes from ' pro + inspect + us' : a way of saying, 'go ahead, take a look and see how you like us- go on..' (..looking through material picked from reality in isolated instances, bits and pieces, so as to ensure that you do like us).
And the books themselves are fascinating. All shiny- smooth paper and matte-finish artistic pictures of abandoned places on campus, or simulated 'everyday life' actions in not-even-real-looking environments. Page after page of literary work, detailing the institution's marvellous heritage (even if it only began last year- and sometimes even this year), its extraordinary, perfectly up-to-date facilities (last revamped in 1932), its amazingly qualified faculty ( who mysteriously disappear between one prospectus photo shoot and the next), and, of course, the wonderful atmosphere created there (no comment). There are pages dedicated to delicately, and sometimes not so delicately, bragging about the achievements of previous students, and unnecessarily detailed descriptions of coursework. All in order to impress the best and the richest. All fascinating and largely unnecessary, because the best already know where they're going, and the richest go where the best go. And so it gets pored over by mediocres with high and hapless hopes of, by some streak of luck, getting into the shiny-shiny institution with the shiny-shiny prospectus. Which will be me, in a year.