Chauffered

Yes, it's a small car.
Today we toured Stuyvesant high school in NYC where the pup may go, at least for a while. Though spouse and I did in fact find it quite disheartening in certain ways. For me it recapitulated much of what I struggled with as an immigrants' kid going to an elite college, but in reverse. What one felt compelled to do (toil and forego much of the grace and wonder of a liberal education) as an immigrants' kid is seemingly glorified here (so completely not the case in the elite school, though there were other issues there like the unseeing arrogance of privilege and a thousand ways to be excluded). Stuyvesant does superb service as a school designed to educate the children of immigrants, and to provide social mobility which seems to have largely disappeared from American life. Yet to me the school was also a rather depressing reminder (though I do know I am terribly lucky) of the single-minded pursuit of academic accomplishment because you have to, there is no choice. So you have to pass that all-important test, work in that lab (or bus dishes), work insanely hard, pull all-nighters, forego a social life, choose the grimly practical rather than the beloved, downplay the whole person--because those are luxuries that get in the way of a better life. The logic makes perfect sense in certain cases where there's a terribly valuable opportunity: but if you have a choice, if you actually do have a choice, that's not what I would choose for my child.