This weekend is officially hell weekend. I mean no disrespect towards any of the family I have spent time with or the teachers who have given me assignments to do, but it has just been one unending pool-pah of a weekend (That’s twice I’ve used that word this week).
I already felt guilty about the AP essay. I don’t regret what I did, because I really didn’t have enough drive to write a really good essay, but I feel like I betrayed something or someone. So I have that hanging over my head. Then came all of my homework, two things were assigned for each of three of my AP classes. Therefore, I had a workload that would be terrifying on a normal weekend. It was not a normal weekend, however, because my relatives have been in town since Wednesday night and I have to be big cousin Ian for Brian and Sean or else I feel wracked with guilt for shooing them away. Thus, my productivity was horribly hindered. Despite my attempts to do work in the car on the way to Kennesaw Mountain yesterday, it just wasn’t working and so I put my work aside until my family left this morning.
There was one glistening beacon of hope in this bleak weekend. As we drove to Buckhead Brewery for dinner with the family, I mentioned to mom that Kate had called to say that a few people were hanging at her house that evening. I had previously told everyone that social events were probably out of the question this weekend and I thought I was prepared to deal with that. It was not without a rush of relief, however, that I heard Mom say that, once the boys were packed and ready for bed, I could go over to see people. My uncle and aunt seconded the idea, saying that they were getting an early start and that I had already done so much. I ate dinner happily, enjoying the time with my family and pondering the possibility of getting a job at the restaurant.
By the time I had played a few more games with the boys, hugged them goodbye and exchanged farewells with my uncle and aunt, it was 9:30 and I drove to the Johnsons’ with a sense of happiness and utter exhaustion. I’m sure any of my friends could have told you that I was a broken human being when I threw myself down on the floor of the Johnsons’ TV room and waited until their movie was over to really speak to anyone. Once the credits were running, several of my friends came over. I proceeded to vent my grievances and fall into the collective comfort of their presence. It took me a while to get to having real fun, but once there, I kicked some serious tail in the ping-pong ball war. After some deep conversations around the ping-pong table marked by random acts of brilliant wit, I found the time to be close to curfew and I took my leave of my friends. It was what I needed and even now, I feel like I could use another dose.
Monday, April 21, 2003
Back in the saddle again, I suppose. Spring Break has been a whirlwind of emotions and now I’m back to my more customary whirlwind. This past week was a study in a few things.
First of all, my definition of family has changed. Family is now the unchanging existence of people biologically related to me. They provide me with the same emotions, constant, unchanging, static and therefore presumably trustworthy, but in reality, unfulfilling and forced. When I was staying at my uncle’s house, going over the same types of jokes, the same games with my cousins, and the same relationships with each person, I felt like it was a job. Don’t get me wrong. There is something comforting about the fact that this sort of atmosphere will always be around, but it’s just so simple. I could describe a typical trip to visit each of my uncles and be guaranteed that the majority of my predicted itinerary would be followed.
It was with this sense of the tried, true, and tiring that I sat figuring out my new cell phone that my mom had bought in the mall near my uncle’s house. She wanted to get phones with area codes up north so that we could make the smooth transition when we move. I went through an hour filling my phone book with the names and numbers of all of the people that have enough bearing on my life that I need the ability to contact them at a moment’s notice. For each friend that went into the phone, I had the opportunity to record a voice prompt that I could speak into the microphone so that the phone would call that person without the need to dial. This nifty little feature had me pondering over countless inside jokes to use for each person. As I recorded the word “chaos” for Sterling’s cell phone, I suddenly decided to try the phone and repeated the word into the mic. After a few rings, Sterling picked up. It wasn’t an eventful conversation, but in the brief moments during which I spoke with him, I felt like I was home. To me, home is now defined by being surrounded by my friends. Thus, not without a sense of irony, I was sitting in a house filled with my family, and I was homesick.
The time I spent with my family was relatively uneventful. The highlights included my uncle’s ranting about my cousin and her current hedonistic approach towards life, which was itself highlighted by the wrapping of my uncle’s Avalon around a tree. Another fine moment was during dinner with my mom’s friend Elaine whom I consider a close friend, somewhere between an aunt and a mother, during which I seized my mom’s departure to the restroom as a chance to confess that I hadn’t really been home one night when my mom had been visiting Elaine and had called my cell phone when there was no answer at the house. I had woven an elaborate tale that worked like a sop to Cerberus and had therefore saved my freedom, despite the fact that Elaine had never bought the story and had kidded me about it ever since. I felt I could trust her with the truth and she smiled and said that mom knows I’m a good kid and that even if I wasn’t home, I hadn’t been doing anything wrong, so it was harmless.
Finally, on Thursday, I escaped the world of unending constants as we set off towards DC for my Georgetown Open House scheduled for Friday and Saturday. I was not sure what I felt about visiting Georgetown, but I was fairly sure that once I set foot on campus, I’d fall madly in love with the school again.
After checking in to the hotel, we walked down M Street towards Georgetown. There is a discernible moment of transition between Georgetown and the rest of DC, and on M Street, that metaphorical shift is manifested in a small concrete bridge over one of the tributaries of the Potomac. We meandered down M Street and I looked over the names of the stores in which I’ll probably blow countless amounts of money during my four years in the area. After lunch at Clyde’s, we trekked up to the campus and there I was. I remembered all the amazing feelings I had experienced last year when Georgetown was just a fleeting option in my mind. It was still beautiful, despite the dreary weather and I was enjoying every moment of it as I followed mom down the stairs to the Financial Aid office. My carefree nature was not to last, however, for as we sat in a small cubicle across a desk from a Financial Aid student volunteer, I received the news that I am getting a whopping $500 in financial aid from Georgetown. That’s right. Five hundred dollars. That, however, is just the tip of the pool-pah. They also do not accept National Merit Scholarships. This means that the $2500 scholarship I have from National Merit is useless. I stormed out of the financial aid office, through the campus and onto the bus back into DC. I was a font of rage, deep within a funk that I hope no friend ever has to see me in.
The reasons for my rage were simple. In that moment, this is how I saw my life: I had been rejected from Princeton and Harvard, two schools that I thought I was going to get into, I was turned down for the John Carroll Scholarship, a scholarship I wanted more than anything, as well as the Villanova Presidential Scholarship, I had foolishly opted against applying to Tech, which would be a great place to go with all my friends at this point, my dream of choosing Georgetown amongst a formidable list of acceptances had been reduced to a choice between it and Villanova, which basically meant no choice at all, and now the ONE thing I had accomplished was useless to me. Thus, I became wrath and left my mother in silence as I stormed into our hotel room and flopped on the couch, defeated by my anger’s lack of a physical adversary. My mom, in his customary fashion, immediately made the whole thing about her. Initially, it was ok. She said she was sorry that the money didn’t work out and I assured her that it wasn’t her fault. She then proceeded to say that I was making her feel horrible. This only enraged me further because I wasn’t trying to make anyone feel anything. I was the one who had only minimally succeeded. I was the one whose best efforts weren’t good enough. I was the one who wanted to be pissed off at me. I remained in this spell of worthlessness from that moment until the next morning. We walked back down to Georgetown and I began my Open House.
From there, things were amazing. I loved the tour, the student panel gave me a great look at how much fun it is to go there and the luncheon with other students gave me a reassurance that I will make friends somewhat easily once I get there. As I walked around campus from event to event (after convincing mom to return to the hotel), I felt at home. I’m going to love it at Georgetown. It’s where I want to go and it’s where I’ll be happy. I can’t wait until August, when I’ll move into my new home, although in the two days I was there, I already felt like I’d found my place. All my anger was dispelled and all of my disappointment was forgotten. All I knew then and all I know now is that college is going to be a helluva good time.
This lead me to a problem (When did I become so pessimistic?!). The ease in which I made friends at the luncheon, the comfortable feeling I had walking around a campus that had no connection to anything that I was familiar with, and the total emersion in the Georgetown atmosphere made me realize one thing: I didn’t miss my friends. This doesn’t mean I don’t love them. That is incredibly far from the truth. However, I am very afraid that it might mean that, once I go to college, I might not have any trouble moving on. My homesickness of earlier in the week had gone and it scared me to no end. I used to think that college would be hard because I wouldn’t be able to leave my friends. Considering the way I felt then, the real hard part is the idea that I might actually be able to. I don’t want to think that I could just dismiss people with whom I’ve shared the best moments of my life, people with whom I surround myself because they make me happy. How could I be so ambivalent towards their absence? I wish I could start a new paragraph saying how I thought of some wonderful conclusion about how I’ll never forget them, but I’m just as scared and concerned now as I was then. I don’t know what’s going to happen.
First of all, my definition of family has changed. Family is now the unchanging existence of people biologically related to me. They provide me with the same emotions, constant, unchanging, static and therefore presumably trustworthy, but in reality, unfulfilling and forced. When I was staying at my uncle’s house, going over the same types of jokes, the same games with my cousins, and the same relationships with each person, I felt like it was a job. Don’t get me wrong. There is something comforting about the fact that this sort of atmosphere will always be around, but it’s just so simple. I could describe a typical trip to visit each of my uncles and be guaranteed that the majority of my predicted itinerary would be followed.
It was with this sense of the tried, true, and tiring that I sat figuring out my new cell phone that my mom had bought in the mall near my uncle’s house. She wanted to get phones with area codes up north so that we could make the smooth transition when we move. I went through an hour filling my phone book with the names and numbers of all of the people that have enough bearing on my life that I need the ability to contact them at a moment’s notice. For each friend that went into the phone, I had the opportunity to record a voice prompt that I could speak into the microphone so that the phone would call that person without the need to dial. This nifty little feature had me pondering over countless inside jokes to use for each person. As I recorded the word “chaos” for Sterling’s cell phone, I suddenly decided to try the phone and repeated the word into the mic. After a few rings, Sterling picked up. It wasn’t an eventful conversation, but in the brief moments during which I spoke with him, I felt like I was home. To me, home is now defined by being surrounded by my friends. Thus, not without a sense of irony, I was sitting in a house filled with my family, and I was homesick.
The time I spent with my family was relatively uneventful. The highlights included my uncle’s ranting about my cousin and her current hedonistic approach towards life, which was itself highlighted by the wrapping of my uncle’s Avalon around a tree. Another fine moment was during dinner with my mom’s friend Elaine whom I consider a close friend, somewhere between an aunt and a mother, during which I seized my mom’s departure to the restroom as a chance to confess that I hadn’t really been home one night when my mom had been visiting Elaine and had called my cell phone when there was no answer at the house. I had woven an elaborate tale that worked like a sop to Cerberus and had therefore saved my freedom, despite the fact that Elaine had never bought the story and had kidded me about it ever since. I felt I could trust her with the truth and she smiled and said that mom knows I’m a good kid and that even if I wasn’t home, I hadn’t been doing anything wrong, so it was harmless.
Finally, on Thursday, I escaped the world of unending constants as we set off towards DC for my Georgetown Open House scheduled for Friday and Saturday. I was not sure what I felt about visiting Georgetown, but I was fairly sure that once I set foot on campus, I’d fall madly in love with the school again.
After checking in to the hotel, we walked down M Street towards Georgetown. There is a discernible moment of transition between Georgetown and the rest of DC, and on M Street, that metaphorical shift is manifested in a small concrete bridge over one of the tributaries of the Potomac. We meandered down M Street and I looked over the names of the stores in which I’ll probably blow countless amounts of money during my four years in the area. After lunch at Clyde’s, we trekked up to the campus and there I was. I remembered all the amazing feelings I had experienced last year when Georgetown was just a fleeting option in my mind. It was still beautiful, despite the dreary weather and I was enjoying every moment of it as I followed mom down the stairs to the Financial Aid office. My carefree nature was not to last, however, for as we sat in a small cubicle across a desk from a Financial Aid student volunteer, I received the news that I am getting a whopping $500 in financial aid from Georgetown. That’s right. Five hundred dollars. That, however, is just the tip of the pool-pah. They also do not accept National Merit Scholarships. This means that the $2500 scholarship I have from National Merit is useless. I stormed out of the financial aid office, through the campus and onto the bus back into DC. I was a font of rage, deep within a funk that I hope no friend ever has to see me in.
The reasons for my rage were simple. In that moment, this is how I saw my life: I had been rejected from Princeton and Harvard, two schools that I thought I was going to get into, I was turned down for the John Carroll Scholarship, a scholarship I wanted more than anything, as well as the Villanova Presidential Scholarship, I had foolishly opted against applying to Tech, which would be a great place to go with all my friends at this point, my dream of choosing Georgetown amongst a formidable list of acceptances had been reduced to a choice between it and Villanova, which basically meant no choice at all, and now the ONE thing I had accomplished was useless to me. Thus, I became wrath and left my mother in silence as I stormed into our hotel room and flopped on the couch, defeated by my anger’s lack of a physical adversary. My mom, in his customary fashion, immediately made the whole thing about her. Initially, it was ok. She said she was sorry that the money didn’t work out and I assured her that it wasn’t her fault. She then proceeded to say that I was making her feel horrible. This only enraged me further because I wasn’t trying to make anyone feel anything. I was the one who had only minimally succeeded. I was the one whose best efforts weren’t good enough. I was the one who wanted to be pissed off at me. I remained in this spell of worthlessness from that moment until the next morning. We walked back down to Georgetown and I began my Open House.
From there, things were amazing. I loved the tour, the student panel gave me a great look at how much fun it is to go there and the luncheon with other students gave me a reassurance that I will make friends somewhat easily once I get there. As I walked around campus from event to event (after convincing mom to return to the hotel), I felt at home. I’m going to love it at Georgetown. It’s where I want to go and it’s where I’ll be happy. I can’t wait until August, when I’ll move into my new home, although in the two days I was there, I already felt like I’d found my place. All my anger was dispelled and all of my disappointment was forgotten. All I knew then and all I know now is that college is going to be a helluva good time.
This lead me to a problem (When did I become so pessimistic?!). The ease in which I made friends at the luncheon, the comfortable feeling I had walking around a campus that had no connection to anything that I was familiar with, and the total emersion in the Georgetown atmosphere made me realize one thing: I didn’t miss my friends. This doesn’t mean I don’t love them. That is incredibly far from the truth. However, I am very afraid that it might mean that, once I go to college, I might not have any trouble moving on. My homesickness of earlier in the week had gone and it scared me to no end. I used to think that college would be hard because I wouldn’t be able to leave my friends. Considering the way I felt then, the real hard part is the idea that I might actually be able to. I don’t want to think that I could just dismiss people with whom I’ve shared the best moments of my life, people with whom I surround myself because they make me happy. How could I be so ambivalent towards their absence? I wish I could start a new paragraph saying how I thought of some wonderful conclusion about how I’ll never forget them, but I’m just as scared and concerned now as I was then. I don’t know what’s going to happen.