My $5,800 Blog Entry

This summer has been tough for lots of college students. The juicier internships have dried up, career-advancing summer jobs are on hiring freezes, and even spots at crappy companies are sometimes scarce. As the school year ended, I thought I was going to have a job. It didn't work out. I thought I was going to be doing an English program. Was rejected. So I started the summer thinking I'd be doubly out of luck: not only was I not making money, I was going to be spending money taking summer classes. But don't worry, I wrote a blog entry.

Here's the story. In high school I signed up for one of those websites that finds you scholarships. Tucked in among all the other essay contests was a weird one: "The George Walford International Essay Prize." I quickly browsed the details. There's this political theory a British guy named George Walford came up with called "Systematic Ideology." Write an essay for, against, or about the theory and you can win £3,500. All the material about the theory was on the website. From what I could tell, systematic ideology was trying to answer the questions, "Why are there still communists when everyone knows communism isn't going to happen? And why are there people so conservative that fascism can erupt at the emergence of a Hitler?"

The essay only had to be 1,500 words long, but I didn't have time to read all the arguments about systematic ideology enough to enter. I put it on the backburner, saying to myself that next year I would look at it again.

Fast forward to this May. I was in Belize on a mission trip brainstorming about how I should use my time this summer. I had signed up for beginning German, but that would only take up the mornings. What should I do with the rest of my time? Play minesweeper? Read books? And then I got to thinking. I had just had a dry editorial published in Orlando's newspaper. Maybe I could do something with writing. Slowly I remembered the systematic ideology essay contest. I won an online video contest in the spring, so I wasn't afraid of the sketchiness of it being only on the Internet.

When I got back to America, I found the website. Yep, the contest was still going. Yep, the prize was still amazing. What really attracted me to it was that for a few of the years, on the page where it displayed the winner, it just said "No qualifying entries." And everybody knows that's a code word for "No one entered." Just to make sure, though, I sent an email to the guy in charge expressing my interest and asking if they expected many people would enter. I was encouraged by his reply.

"Dear Will:

Yes the George Walford International Essay Prize is worth entering!
We never know how many entries we will get, but I can say that some
years there are very few. Very, very few.

- Trevor"

I had three weeks until the deadline. Each of the two founders of systematic ideology wrote a book, so for the next two weeks every day after German I read their books and took notes. Then the next week I wrote my essay. It ended up being 22 pages. All told it was a lot of effort, but the whole time I was like, well, if I won, the £3,500 prize would more than make up for not having a summer job. In today's market, £3,500 is about $5,800.

The makers of the contest wanted a plain-text version of the essay, so I made it into a blog entry. I was kinda embarrassed that I was even entering such a no-name, no-hope contest with something I had worked on so hard, so when Facebook found my blog entry, I deleted the Facebook version. My mom proofread the essay. "At least one person will have read it by the time everything is over," I told her.

And then I won! The lead judge wrote this about my entry: "I nominate 'Chiropracting Systematic Ideology' by Will Penman as the winner of the 2009 GWIEP. He shows a deep understanding of the theory and a deep understanding of its history. His criticisms constitute new grounds. He links the theory to other theories. Far above everything else this year and perhaps ever, including my own work."

I got the check yesterday, but have already been spending like a winner. I bought a belt. Went to The Melting Pot with Stephanie. Am planning a roadtrip to Boston. I can't go crazy since I do have to think about paying for summer school, UF's increased tuition next year, and grad school apps, but still. I won!

Here's a link to the contest: George Walford International Essay Prize. If you click on "Prior Winners" you'll see a page with my essay lined right up with past winners. All the information is on the website if anybody wants to enter next year. The contest sure has made my summer.