Sunday, March 16, 2008

The whole admissions story

Ok, now that everything has sort of simmered down a bit, I figured you may be interested in how yesterday went (if not, don't read it. That simple.)

*Ahem*

Let's start with Friday. Friday was the day before spring break at Pearland, and thus time for the annual Senior Vs. Faculty Dodgeball game, which was epic. I thought seniors were pretty lazy folk come 2nd semester, but the truth is senior teachers are just as bad, so in my classes I did Orange Juice of work. (inside physics joke. Hint: Whats the common abbreviation for Orange Juice? What unit is work measured in?)

In government we had an impromptu talent contest showcasing my ability to dance [read:not] and play the guitar. My teacher surprised us all when he started playing and singing, and he's 60-somethin years old!

Directly after school I went to tutor math for this one girl. She's in 5th grade and, no joke, absolutely does not get math. At all. Actual conversation:

"So if 12 buses can each carry 12 students, how many students are there?"
pause
"ok, well what should we do to figure out how many students there are?"
pause
"...divide?"
*Chris bashes head into table*
The rest of the night is me just trying to do anything to keep my mind off decisions the next day. I finally end up falling asleep at 3.a.m. My mom and sister wake me up at 7 to tell me goodbye as they leave, and I can't fall back asleep. Great. So I spend the rest of the morning watching shows on the discovery channel, except I was constantly thinking about decisions so I have no idea what I watched, except at one point a crazy man with an Australian accent talked about snakes having two penises (penii? I'm not sure) because he said the word "Hemipenis" and I busted out laughing. (partially because in my head it made all those Chevy commercials incredibly akward. "Dude, does that have a hemi?" Finish the scene in your mind)
Anyway, about 10 o'clock I head to the bank to deposit my weeks earnings and such. While I'm waiting I'm again trapped by thoughts about admissions. I kicked myself for not applying to more schools. I think about the video I made and wonder who's seen it, and what they thought. The song that plays at the end, How Far We've Come by Matchbox 20, is one of my favorite songs, and in particular that line for me sums up the whole experience of my senior year to that point:
"I believe the world is burning to the ground/
oh well I guess we're gonna find out/
Let's see how far we've come/
Let's see how far we've come"
It means regardless of what happens, take a look and see what you've made of yourself, the journey you've gone on. I felt it was appropriate. I'm thinking about this as I get in the car, I turn on the radio and this is what I hear:

"I believe the world is burning to the ground/
oh well I guess we're gonna find out/
Let's see how far we've come/
Let's see how far we've come"
I think "Well wow, that's sort of a crazy coincidence." By the time I get home, it's 10:40. 20 minutes left (actually 15, I figured they'd post them a weee bit early). I sit down at my computer and open up three tabs in Firefox: the decision page, Pandora, and a page of encouraging quotes. I put on some Constance Demby on Pandora, (great band if you've never heard of them) and start reading the quotes to mentally prepare myself for the 88% chance (statistically anyway) of disappointment. The quotes I read are in another post. One in particular stuck out to me:
"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." ~Alexander Graham Bell
That helps calm me a lot. It puts everything in perspective, and I truly feel ok with not getting in to MIT. Sure I'll be disappointed, but there will be other oppurtunities for me that I wouldn't have had if I went to MIT. I switch over to decisions, type in all my stuff, take a deep breath and
*click click*
I read:

Dear Chris,
On behalf of the Admissions Committee, it is my pleasure to offer you---
and flip out. I don't even finish the sentence, I let loose a very spartan battle cry and jumped up. I ran into the the living room to tell my dad, his reaction: "are you sure?"...."are you kidding?"
I can't stop saying "Oh ma gawd" over and over as I run my hands through my hair, he sits down and reads the letter. "congratulations kiddo, you did it". I stumble a bit and feel queasy, too much adrenaline I guess. It subsides and I print a copy and race out the door to tell my best friend.
I get to Misty's house and ring the door bell. No response. I ring it again. No response. I look at my watch. It's 11:08. I laugh (Misty, her mom, and I all share a rather...nocturnal... sleep pattern, they don't get up until noon on saturdays, literally). Finally I call her, and her mom comes to the door squinting at the light. I shove the paper to her punctuated by "look look look look look" She freaks out and gives me a hug, she tells me Misty is asleep, she'll go wake her up. 5 minutes later she comes out of the hall and says "Misty says just go back there". I walk into her room and it's pitch black (no windows). Misty is grumpy and half-asleep.
"Hey I want you to see something."
"mmm what?"
"Read this"
*turns on light and squints to see paper*
"OMG!"
*big hug*
*screams* (her, not me lol)
Her mom comes in to celebrate with us. We celebrate by getting Jack in the Box. I send text messages to every person in my address book, here are some of the best:
"cool."
"lol...Who is this?"
"congratufuckinglations" <--my foul mouthed theatre friend
"what's that?"
I head home and my dad has called all our family. I do all the obligatory blogging and stuff. That night I went out clubbing with some of my friends to celebrate, and tonight my dad and my older sister went out to dinner. All in all, an amazing experience.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

congrats. you deserve it.

Shruthi said...

Lol... Brilliant entry :D I did laugh about the frequent head bash that you seem subjecting yourself to :D

Edie said...

Congratulations, again! =D

Anonymous said...

Your blog is amusing. Congrats from a fellow '12er. =)

Anonymous said...

Dude, I'm tutoring a kid who's in 8th grade who is EXACTLY like that! It sucks! :( At least we try right? :P

Anonymous said...

oh and good story btw. On of the answers to my texts of denial was kinds funny but I won't post it on here for fear of offending someone :) :P (he's foul mouthed AND racist haha)

Daniel Barkowitz said...

Congratulations! Looking forward to meeting you at CPW and seeing you in the Fall!

Anonymous said...

haha, i love the "who is this?" and "what's that?"

i definitely texted NEARLY everyone in my phonebook too... but uhh i stuck to people i knew ;D

Paul said...

I know I'm a little late to the show, but a few thoughts.

a) Pandora is amazing, I use it all the time (including now).
b) Matchbox Twenty rocks my socks. "How Far I've Come" is incredibly catchy, I love it. Rob Thomas' solo stuff is pretty awesome too.
c) Nice quotes.
d) Most importantly, CONGRATS. But you knew that already.