I don’t mean to steal the thunder from Linda’s very first blog post ever, (as an avid blogger who once wrote an article titled “To Those About to Blog, I Salute You” for a high school newspaper, I salute you Linda 😉 ) but I figured it was about time for a post from me. I’d been pretty much AWOL around HNZ for a long while, something which still upsets me, and it was always for different reasons each time; and I apologize for never really posting an absence post, I mostly only tell the staff that I’ll be missing for a while. The most recent reason was that it was now March and I still had no idea what I was going to do for school exactly. Those of you who know me well/personally, know that school is really important to me and I’m very bitter about the subject of college, or university, as they call it in other places. But for all I know, I’m just a “grass is greener on the other side” type of person who just longs to be in school, but once I actually attend, I’d hate it just as much as most of my friends do.
Anyway, I had an emotional breakdown after having a conversation with my younger sister about her future plans and saw that hers actually seemed to be in motion, or at least seemed like they were tangible. Now I love my sister to death, but school and rules and the like have never been her strong point, ever. And since she had a baby last year I expected her to be even further behind on getting her life together as I assume lots of teen moms are, (no offense to any out there! :x). So when afterward I sat there crying, asking myself what I was doing with myself and why I was letting myself waste time, this wasn’t like me at all. If I wanted something I worked hard for it until I got it (such a Slytherin 😉 ). I had applied to St. John’s a while earlier, but because the acceptance process was so long, the deadline for Housing had past, and since I wasn’t an admitted student yet, I wasn’t allowed to pay any deposits, just in case I was rejected it wouldn’t be money down the drain. Since I live in Texas, living on campus was the absolute most important thing to me, since even the cheapest apartment in New York is completely out of my family’s price range; so since I had missed the deadline for Housing, I considered the option of St. John’s gone, thus creating more hysteria about what I was to do.
After getting myself together, I started writing the essay for an application to another school, and before I knew it, I had submitted my application even though the deadline had long passed. I don’t know why I still decided to submit my application even though the deadline had passed, but I just decided “Oh well, at least they’ll have my application on file,” and literally the next week I got a call from the school. That’s never happened before, a school taking an interest in me personally! We talked on the phone about what else I needed to submit before being officially accepted and I asked about my priority, Housing, and said it was nowhere near close to deadline. This was music to my ears, I cried, out of joy this time, because I felt that I was finally making progress. The only downside was that it wasn’t in New York, and it wasn’t St. John’s, my dream school. Oh well, I could live with that. At least it was anywhere but Texas! (And Ohio isn’t that far from New York). I’d go there for one year and transfer to St. John’s the next, this was just getting my foot in the door, I could live with that! I soon began getting really excited at the fact that I might be going to school again, and the thought of it being in a small town in Ohio (a place I’ve always wanted to visit for some reason) was making me giddy! I had convinced myself that this school was going to be awesome and St. John’s could suck it for not taking an interest in me personally and thought “That’s their loss!”
Then came the mass emails from St. John’s. I had officially been accepted so now they were just going through their routine mass emails to newly accepted students – Come visit the campus! – -Don’t forget to register at our website! – – Want to study abroad? You can with STJ! – the usual. This was my fourth time being accepted to St. John’s so I knew the routine. I was going to delete the emails, I had too many of the same ones from previous times anyway; it felt like a bad break up where I was trying to get rid of old love letters or something. But even with old love letters, I can’t help but open them and read them, which is always a bad idea because old feelings come flooding back and then the waterworks start, or at least that’s the way it is with me. I learned though that the longer it had been between a break up, the less it hurt and the easier it got to throwing away the love letters (or deleting in this modern age). It wasn’t like that with St. John’s; I couldn’t bring myself to delete the emails, and there I was, reading every single email and then going a step further with my pain by visiting their website and I couldn’t take it. I reminded myself what I thought earlier “This is my FOURTH time being accepted to St. John’s”, was I really going to reject them for a fourth time?! Granted they weren’t as invested into the relationship as I was, but really? Four times? That got me into thinking why I kept putting off St. John’s and then it hit me. I had always refrained from admitting it but the reason I kept putting if off was because I was scared of the heartache. I was scared of getting so attached to St. John’s the way I had that very first time I was supposed to go, 2 years ago, that I distanced myself and I called things off before they could, to save me the pain.
So St. John’s was officially back in the running. Even though I had no idea if I could still live on campus or if it was too late for me to accept my place, enough was enough, no more putting it off and living in fear; no more wondering “What if?” I chose St. John’s. Even though Ohio was the safest choice for me, it never stood a chance against my dream school. I paid all my deposits the very next morning even though the Housing deadline had passed, and this time things were different, I started getting new emails from them that I’d never read before. It was the new post-acceptance emails, and this time it felt real. The emails were more personal (still mass-sent emails) but more towards students who had made the commitment to St. John’s rather than the old “You’re accepted, now confirm you wanna come here!” emails.
Things changed from then on. I had chats with Admissions workers and called them frequently for information (who cares if I kept getting transferred to 5 different departments within 10 seconds each time!) And then came the chat with all the Deans. After that chat session with the Deans of St. John’s, I can honestly (and very arrogantly) say I made quite an impression on them, I even got asked to please visit their office when I went to campus in the fall. 😀 And now the emails I get aren’t the mass-sent emails but the personal one-on-one emails regarding my enrollment status directly. The chat sessions aren’t private since students can just pop in whenever they want, so I know that these invitations and requests for my email address aren’t normal, seeing as they didn’t ask any other student who joined the chat. /boasting They not only helped me with the usual FAQ’s incoming freshman have, but they helped me decide what I should study. Journalism was always going to be my major, but lately I had become interested in Politics, which they gushed was excellent to study alongside Journalism, so I wasn’t sure whether to take that as well, or Business. In the end we decided on a double major in Journalism and Politics, with a minor in Business – and if that proves to be too much for me, then the Politics can just become a minor too. 🙂 BEST OF ALL? They pretty much guaranteed I’d have a dorm since I’m a freshman! You have NO idea how ecstatic I was when I heard that!
So it’s official, I’M GOING TO ST. JOHN’S!!! Registration for classes doesn’t start until June, and they won’t start sending out Housing notices until then either, so all I have left to do is wait. I got my financial aid and I still have to apply for a few loans and save up money to go, but I don’t care, I’M GOING TO ST. JOHN’S! I can’t believe it’s actually happening. I said it before, and I’ll say it again, this is my year, I can feel it! In a few months’ time, I’ll be living in the best place in the world, going to my dream school that is so utterly perfect for me. <3 And hopefully in a year’s time I’ll be getting ready to meet Pattycakes and Galinda for the first time too and we’ll all go see Wicked. 😀 And what this means for HNZ? Well as I said, all there’s left to do is wait until June, and now my sister’s out of high school so expect me to be on more often, finally! 😀
Finally, a happy update from me! 😀
~Elphaba
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