Perkily Ironic

i have the same problem too with word that i learned from books when i was little before anyone considered me old enough to use such words around me. i still pronounce oregon phonetically sometimes. your uchicago essay is awesome, it's about the same place on the weirdness scale as mine was, but much better. i don't know you, but i feel like i do from that essay. it also shows that you're all smart and idiosyncratic and stuff, which is prized at both uchicago and swarthmore. that's why i applied to them actually. oh, and regarding proper pronunciation of university of chicago, people do interpret that 2nd syllable as going anyway along the "a" continuum. being a native chicagoan suburbanite who goes to school "out east," i'm confused myself on what the proper pronunciation is, if there is one.