I Can't Say "Now It Begins"...

...because college has been a subject of so much debate and research in my household that it's more like the old ad: You're soaking in it. But last night we went to our first "college fair," which (for those who might not know) is rather like a job fair, except the attending colleges are trying just as hard to sell their institutions as the Hopeful Young are to sell themselves. It was held in the gym of one of the two high schools in Palo Alto, a place packed with laconic teens and garrulous parents, all with a slight edge of competitive desperation. And then there's us.

Jack Kennedy famously said that he was the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris; last night we were the people who accompanied Avocado to the college fair. And stood back and watched her work the room. It's not just her enthusiasm and smarts (which I, as her mother, am very sensitive to) that shone, but her forthright curiosity. And her by-God insistence on getting the information she wants. Over and over I watched her charm people who had that fixed "I've talked to too many tiger Moms tonight" glaze, then say, "So why should I want to come to University of Middle Earth? Sell me!"

Where does this come from? I cannot remember ever having had this particular brand of go-gettitude, even at 16. And yet she's not just insistent, she has the gift of making people want to tell her what she wants to know.