My application is in!

I've worked so hard on these entrance essays, and learned so much in the process that I want to blog them. They'll be slightly edited for confidential content, but largely intact. Without further ado, I present:

Essay one: Autobiographical statment discussing previous academic experience and the reasons for interuption in education:

I spent my home-schooled years in Canada and North Carolina hungry for college. The oldest of many children, (twelve at last count) I daydreamed about wide-open libraries, uninterrupted stretches of time just to read, and most of all, intellectual companions. My parents were rightfully consumed with the serious business of keeping us all fed, and my young siblings had no patience for my obsessions. I was sure that once I made it to college, the opportunities for discourse and discussion would be limitless.

At eighteen, my passions were split cleanly three ways. The first was science. I’d tasted the possibilities in local classes and teetered at the edge of pursuing a degree in computational chemistry. But left to my own devices with a dry textbook, I’d floundered in math and doubted my ability. Worse, a warning rang in my head: “A doctor? Why spend nearly a decade in school when you’ll be staying home with your children in the end?”
Directly opposite lay my desire to perform. In the last months before college, I’d won a place in a regional theatre camp: eight blissful weeks of eight-hour-a-day immersion in improvisation, choral singing, stage-fighting and prop-building. Joyfully, I imagined four more years of the same. I was accepted to UNC-Greensboro, intending to double-major in music and theatre.

Superseding even my love of science and theatre, my Catholic faith was the underlying principle of my life. Throughout my intensely religious childhood I had courted the possibility of a religious vocation. The seeming hugeness of this first life-decision (magnified in my mind by its potentially eternal consequences) haunted me, and I was racked with doubt over my choice. If this life was simply preparation for a heavenly career, it would be a terrible vanity to waste my time with art! Mere weeks before check-in at UNC-G, I performed a repentant about-face. A flurry of paperwork and phone-calls secured me a place in an extremely conservative Catholic college. It promised a rigorous liberal-arts education and daily religious formation: a chance to steep myself in both books and faith until God decided what to do with me.

My first year broke my resolve and my heart. It truly was a school for full immersion in a certain worldview. It was the worldview I’d assumed I’d always hold, but as the straight and narrow path closed in, I stumbled against the restrictions. I was scolded for reading Joyce (“a mere profane stylist”) and forbidden to produce a play by (“the scandalously homosexual”) Wilde. Turning to the library for comfort, I found that it lacked even Yeats (“a known occultist”). Disappointed and confused—in the throes of my first crisis of faith—I withdrew my heart and my mind from my studies. Ready to flee one disappointment for another, I left school behind.

Nap time?

Alas, it is not. I am at work during a slow period where my only duty is to man the phone. I have been a busy girl, though. Yes, I have.

I've been writing and re-writing my personal statements. I think I am almost there. I've found two references and am pondering the third. I have copied, researched, emailed, typed, faxed, labled, mailed and fed-exed nearly non-stop. I've dredged up the ancient memories of my unschooling homeschooling experience. It really wasn't that long ago, but I feel as though I've had so many lives between now and then--it is like stretching back into the dark reaches of time. It's been an exciting and exhausting experience, but I have to say I am feeling proud of myself. None of this sort of thing comes easily to me. I can write a thousand exposés of my life: pulp fiction, inspirational fiction, narrative non-fiction, whatever. But to truthfully share the light and dark of those times in a way that is quiet, calm, measured, and mature takes a great deal of thought and strength. It's been a good exercise, and I'm not done yet.

A week after I first learned about the main program I am applying to, I had my first dream of flying. Most accounts of flying dreams seem to feature soaring, swooping, and watching vivid scenery flash by far below. When my dream began I was standing still in a dark place, looking at my feet. I had gone to bed with aching shoulders from several days of shovelling and ice-chopping. In the dream I was very aware of my arms, but when I looked at them, they had been replaced by the huge, soft, strong white wings of a snowy owl. The atmosphere was cold, thicker than water. I raised my wings above my head with great effort and slowly brought them down through the congealed air. The physics of dreams are uncertain at best, but I rose a few inches from the ground and hung suspended, resting. Each time I repeated the action I rose a little higher. It was extremely difficult, and sometimes I would stop and rest in mid-air for whole minutes at a time. As I gained altitude the air grew more clear and bright, and my wingbeats more free and easy. Before I woke up, I had reached no final destination: the only direction was a slow staccato ascending.

Waking from the dream, I lay very still and heard the phrase "trample down" resting in my mind.

Go through the work, and be valiant for the truth upon earth; tread and trample down all that is contrary.

--George Fox

I seemed that in the dream I was pushing down this dark air, but it was beyond a mere trampling: the dark air was also the means by which I rose above the worst of it: the resistance was necessary.

It was a fruitful dream, and I find it interesting that past transformative dreams have also featured large white birds.

And I know other people's dreams can be boring, but I had another meaningful one: I was dying of a blood infection. A doctor came up to me and told me I was septic, and that doctor was also me. Doctor-me gave patient-me a transfusion and I was cured. The end. Huh.

Step up to the line

I've been tangled in a morass of possibilities these past few days. My iTunes are echoing my reality...

But you'll fight and you'll make it through
You'll fake it if you have to
And you'll show up for work with a smile
And you'll be better
You'll be smarter
More grown up and a better daughter or son
And a real good friend
And you'll be awake
You'll be alert
You'll be positive though it hurts
And you'll laugh and embrace all of your friends
And you'll be a real good listener
You'll be honest
You'll be brave
You'll be handsome and you'll be beautiful
You'll be happy

I am busy being an insomniac and making insomniac promises to myself. I am applying for two "non traditional scholar" programs now that I am finally elderly enough and quailing before all the lines and lines and lines and lines of self-aggrandizement and assessment required. How many qualified people can check the "exceptional" box for me? What has my life been up till now (and from now)? Can I explain myself in 250 to 500 words? Can I make an account of the blessed disaster of my past five years? Can I tell them what I thought would happen to me at eighteen, what happened to me at twenty-one, what's different at twenty-four, and what I hope for myself at twenty-nine, all in the space allotted? Can I plead my case? Can I beg forgiveness, earn a second chance? Can I prove that I was worth it all this time? Can I compress my years of pain and doubt and fear and hatred and coffee-shops and learning and growth and despair and hope all into one essay?

I don't know. In the meantime I think I will cry a little bit. Heh.


In my dreams
I see myself hitting a baseball
In a green field somewhere near a freeway
I'm all tan and smiling and running from 3rd base
And it's hot and
The kids keep on playing the driving game
And they're singing the same goddamn refrain
And the sky is a blueish grey.
And its become just like a chemical stress
Tracing the lines in my face for
Something more beautiful than is there
I've barely been gone.

In my dreams
I see you at the foot of some mountains.
And we're taking some pictures or something
And we'd better hurry up
And it's late and
The sun keeps on shooting through pine trees
And the grass stains are wet on your new jeans
And we'd better hurry up
And I've become just like a terrible mess
searching the lines in my face for
something more beautiful than is there
the crowds keep me coming back. Cheering.

In my dreams
I see you asleep on a twin bed
The covers pulled up over your head
Am I asleep or awake?
And it's morning
And the captain is playing the radio
And hes just put the paint on his new boat
Am I asleep or awake?

And it just feels good when you're waking up
And it just feels good when you're next to me
And it just feels good when you're coming home
And it just feels good when it's waking up

And I've become just like a chemical stress
Tracing the lines of my face for
Something more beautiful than is there
I've barely been gone
and I'm not a failure
I swear
I wish you could see it from over there
I've got a lot over here without you
I've barely been gone
gone
dreaming

(All lyrics courtesy Rilo Kiley)

How to shed 20 years in 20 seconds

Oh man. I just spent a few minutes on youtube watching commercials from the 80's. It is amazing how nothing else can take me back so forcefully. GI Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony, Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, The Chipmunks, My Pet Monster, Teddy Ruxpin, "The Real Ghostbusters"!

One 20 second commercial and I'm once again below the age of reason.

Wow.

(I know these latest posts haven't been too heavy, but this one is for real! How is it that an entire childhood can be summoned by a few flashing images and a theme song? Eek! And this was TWENTY YEARS AGO. OH MY GOD.)

Also, every single animated series of the period seemed to be a 20 minute commercial for the matching toys. Sigh.

What Generation am I? Somewhere in between X and Y. (Born at the tail end of 1982) Whoever we are, somehow it seems like we got the biggest blast of unadulterated commercialization, before irony and savvy marketing caught on. I think maybe we did have it balder (but maybe better) than the target-marketed kids of today. (Even if I did own 10 My Little Ponies, and even if I did constantly try to trade them for Transformers!)

Hee

In class again, during Q&A, and I just found this quote, which made my evening.


"Adults are just outdated children, and the hell with them." - Dr. Suess