Explanations and Imaginations

The month is almost over and it seems like it never began. That's not to say I don't remember anything from it. I remember the middle quite clearly and with a bit of affection. The first week where I thought that I might end up someplace completely different from where I had resigned myself to. The few weeks in the middle where a set of exams took my breath away and where I finally understood the privilege I had been afforded by studying with the students that I have been. Quite spectacular. These are, of course, the AP exams which will determine what, if any freshman courses I will have to take during my first year of college. Knocking these out of the way means less money in tuition, fees, and books, and hopefully a quicker graduation. Knocking these out of the way means less loans which is very good.

On May 11 I headed from my Chemistry AP exam with a good friend over to a local Best Buy and picked up Narrow Stairs, the latest CD by Death Cab for Cutie. I do not know if I have impressed upon you my love for this band in earlier posts (and am, at the moment, too lazy to wade through the clutter and check). However, allow me to do that now. This band is pure genius, and I fell in love with them the first time listening to Soul Meets Body off of their 2005 album plans. Needless to say, this album does not disappoint. It's full of the same thought provoking lyrics, playful melodies, and subtle overtones that affect me (and I hope most listeners) in a truly profound way. This album is slightly different from their earlier work. It's more rough and loose with less emphasis placed on the sort of glossy sheen that was applied so vigorously to Plans. It is, in many ways, a throwback to their earlier work, even before Translatlanticism (a 2003 album that put them on the map in the popular music world). However, in many ways it's completely different from that as well. This new sort of music has the chance of alienating many of their die hard fans, but I have found myself enthralled by it.

The Final Seconds

Wow. The last day has been hard. The last week has been hard, but yesterday might have been one of the most stressful days of my life. I'm talking about truly profound stress, the kind that reached deep inside you and twists something and you don't feel right for a long time after. Yesterday afternoon I had a call from an admissions official at Brandeis University, one of the institutions that I applied to in the spring. In March I found that I had been placed on the waiting list. I resigned myself to the fact that I would not make it into such a prestigious institution (don't feel bad if you've never heard of it, apparently no one has, but I encourage you to research it, it's actually quite a great school, with conspicuously high rankings among other competitive schools in the Boston area). Well, this guy named David calls up and informs me that I've been admitted to the class of 2012. The entire conversation felt slightly surreal. I had resigned myself to a future at my state's respectable university, an experience that, while I thought might prove itself to be surprisingly fulfilling. Now, in the final seconds of the game I've been told that there is another choice. An entirely new option. I got very excited.

They offered me $28,000 in aid. Seconds ago, I got off the phone, having left an extremely bewildered message on David's voice mail detailing why I could not attend Brandeis in the fall. The long and the short of it (as I frantically attempt to explain it to myself right now) is that, despite the copious amount of money they were prepared to offer me, at the end of my four years there, I would still graduate with close to $40,000 in debt. This, while perhaps negligible compared to some people's debt, was too much for me, especially when held in comparison to the parsley $14,000 in debt I would incur at my state school.

So I turned them down. My dream school, the school that had the potential to open for me doors to places I had never before imagined, lucrative careers, and a nurturing profoundly ingenious teaching rationale that encouraged introspection and understanding; tolerance over ignorance, with an emphasis on knowledge as the key to success. I place that, I feel, I would have fit right in.

But in the end, I have to think realistically. And the reality is that at this state school I would still relieve a stellar education at quite a reduced price. And right now, that's something I can't say no to.

Isn't it funny how supposedly win/win situations suddenly become lose/lose? I suppose we'll see how this all plays out.