They Burn in Our Brains - Become a Living Hell

Couple of confessions:

First, to recap something from the last post, "Hoping for the Best". Recall that there was a lobotomy case in the late 1940s where surgeons blindly severed blood vessels in a woman's brain in hopes of curing her eccentricity and making her fit into their idea of normal society. Well, a couple of days after I wrote that post, I had a scientific method activity in my physics-theater class (a class based on examining the presence of scientific principles in plays and such). In small groups, we had to make educated guesses at the contents of a sealed shoebox. We could shake it, drop it, throw it - just not open it. The first girl in my group picked up the box, shook it a few times, and declared that she thought it was a CD. Every subsequent person followed in suit, and agreed that it was a CD. For some reason, I just didn't want to agree with everyone else - even as the experiment continued and it became more apparent that it was, indeed, a CD. I held out for Tupperware lid.

Later in class, I thought about how my disagreement affected everyone else - my opinion was out of place. It was different. And it was wrong. I thought about how people in the 20th century would have looked at me. And I resolved that every day from then on, I should try to do at least one thing every day that's out of the ordinary - something out of place, something untraditional - something that would warrant the 20th century to stick a scalpel inside of my head.

Tonight, we had the traditional Lewis Hall Freshman Welcome. We went to the chapel (every dorm has its own chapel) and listened to our rector and hall staff talk about the emphasis on feeling at home here. Then we broke into floor sections and were given necklaces with the Notre Dame crest on one side and the Golden Dome engraved on the other. Then our RA threw a box of tissues into the center of the circle and proceeded to hand out letters. Letters from parents, or in my case, a letter from my RA, Kayla. I read the card and looked at the little fridge magnet she bought me. I finished and caught Kayla looking at me. I smiled and mouthed "thank you", seeing as how she'd written me a card so I would have something to read while the other girls cried over letters from their parents. I knew she pitied me. And I let her.

You see, I just happened to check the mail on the day that Lewis sent my parents the letter over the summer, asking them to write me a personal letter about how proud they are of me. I had seen the Notre Dame logo and opened it without looking at who it was addressed to. I played with the idea of giving them the letter. Explaining that I had opened it on accident and therefore ruined the surprise. But then I thought about it some more. My school had to send them a request for them to tell me that they're proud of me? I threw the letter away. Over orientation weekend, I got into a fight with my dad. I resorted to not speaking to him unless absolutely necessary - and even then, I wouldn't look at him. When the parents were asked to go into the chapel to listen to our rector Layla give a presentation, I quickly and clearly said, "If anyone asks you to write me a letter, don't. I don't want you to."

Everything went exactly as planned. But when I saw the trouble that Kayla went through, I felt horrible. I thought about confessing to the circle, but decided against it when I saw how affected my section was by their letters. Honestly, the idea of me crying in public repulses me. That's just how I am. The idea of showing emotion to strangers is...well, less than ideal. But wait: I would rather be pitied than display sentimentality? What the hell is wrong with me?

Maybe someone really should sweep a scalpel around the inside of my brain.

Roman Cavalry Choirs Are Singing

Move-in day. Of course I thought it would be awful. And naturally, it was. With a shaky night of sleep, I woke up bright and early to be shuffled around parking lots and finally into a tiny room. In retrospect, the day wasn't particularly horrible - as in no one was injured, broken up with, or anything. But tons of little things went wrong, which of course only put me into a pretty terrible mood. The last thing I wanted to do was go to Frosh-O (freshman orientation activities for dorms/whatever). I'd actually been dreading awkward "break the ice" games for weeks. But before I get into that, I'll make a running list of things that I've noticed/things that have happened so far. Not particularly in order.

1) Things are easier when my parents aren't around.
2) South Dining Hall is better than North. Sadly, my dorm is in the northern part of campus.
3) Books are horribly expensive. Like ridiculously. It isn't even funny. Mine were about $831 and some change. I had calculated about half of that, but because I needed to buy them in person to use my student account, all of the used books were gone and I had to get them all new.
4) Free food is a nice gesture. As are free things in general.
5) The squirrels in the north are weird. They're huge and an orange/gray color. And they randomly sit in the middle of sidewalks even when you need to get past.
6) The veggie burgers were pretty terrible. Mine cracked - literally - into two pieces when I put it on the plate.
7) Private schools are overrated.
8) The to-go coffee in the campus mini-mart is fair trade!
9) If anyone follows the trends of links I "share" on facebook, there's a top few things that I really love: awesome cover songs, things related to blog topics (money, credit, college, random statistics), and acapella.
10) I really like boys.

So, it would be the perfect end to my perfectly horrible day to be sat in a chair in front of my dorm's Frosh-O girls and staff and be serenaded by the fabulous male acapella extension of the Glee Club. They needed a girl who had "Tiffany" in their name, because they were going to sing Breakfast at Tiffany's by Deep Blue Something. Have I mentioned how fabulous these boys are?

Apparently, Notre Dame takes advantage of the fact that the dorms are single-sex. So it's tradition for each dorm to learn songs to hit on the other gender's dorms with. It sounded horrific to me on paper, but it's actually pretty fabulous. Everyone's doing it at the same time, so no one feels stupid. And then the guys reciprocate. And they really try to take advantage of the whole "Prince Charming" thing and are all so...charming. I wish I could be more eloquent and interesting, but it's almost 2am here in South Bend. I know, I've written really good stuff in the middle of the night before, but tonight it's more about...well, actually I do have a point.

STOP SCROLLING THROUGH MY STUPID GIRLY STORY AND READ MY POINT: Things can be really awful in every way for a really long time. But somehow, things will get better. When I went to Mass for the first time with Sara a few months ago, the guest speaker was Father Guy from Haiti. For a non-Catholic, this was probably the best sermon to be my first. He talked about the earthquake that devastated his community - and how they were recovering. In times of mass destruction - situations when large amounts of innocent, undeserving people are struck with utter chaos - people generally, in my uneducated opinion, turn towards or away from religion. Some question what kind of a God would allow such destruction to occur. Others have faith in a plan or a purpose and do their best to cope. While I'm wary of the idea of a "master plan", I do value the good things that come after the bad. It's that age-old principle that bad things happen because you need them to - even grand destruction can spur wonderful things - although you might have to wait for them. But when they do come - they'll matter all that much more because they have value. And they have value because they're rare - because they're not guaranteed. And because they don't last forever.,

You're Not That Bright Now...But You Will Be, Someday Soon

I think I should start a running tally of all the things that make me genuinely happy no matter what:

1) Disney movies. For a variety of reasons (some of which are more cynical than light-hearted. But we'll have this talk some other time). SIDE NOTE: The Princess and the Frog was the very best thing ever. And I mean that. No cynicism involved.

2) Weddings. I'm not even kidding.

In all honesty, the past ten months or so have been pretty rough. Maybe even a little bit before that. It's just been a nonstop stress-filled trip, basically. Almost like the future decided to rush me to see if I could take it.

Like I said before, going away to college has always been part of the grand plan - and it's always felt like if the plan didn't work out, it must mean that I failed at something, somewhere along the way. Well, four or five rejection letters in a row are staring that plan down at this moment. Anyway, let's just say this past week or so hasn't been the greatest.

However, today, we received the highly anticipated wedding invitation from Sharon, the second oldest daughter of our longtime family friend. I read every word, and broke into an uncontrollable smile (yes, I do realize this makes me unreasonably sentimental).

Later, I realized: That invitation meant more to me than any college acceptance letter could have. Because it means something more than getting into a designer label school, or appeasing my parents - or meeting someone else's requirements for happiness.

I think William Faulkner had it all figured out.


In other college news, (which is mainly why I started this blog - to talk about college stuff):
My financial aid offer came in from Tulane today (about an hour before we got Sharon's wedding invitation, actually). Basically, they'll give me about $39,100 total. $8,500 in loans from the school, $3,000 in exchange for me taking a part-time job there, $20,000 as my original scholarship offer upon acceptance, and an extra $7,600 thrown in as a gift for good measure. In the end, my family would have to come up with about $15,000 a year, not including paying back the loans (you can do the math).

Basically, college doesn't come cheap. Although my dad so eloquently described it yesterday, "All the scholarships and discounts and numbers - it's not real money". Which makes sense when you think about it.
Sadly, however, the less fake money you're offered, the more real money you've got to hand over.