If you didn't know that I've deciding between two colleges, now you know. Grinnell and Miami. My decision was due postmarked on May 1st, so I actually had to decide by today or (really, best) yesterday. I visited Grinnell on the 20th through 21st, and Miami on the 23rd. Then I started mulling it over.
-Here is a sample of my thoughts.
Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami Grinnell Miami
-I needed my decision by Saturday night to make it easiest to turn in the forms. At various times I made decisions, but they were all only waiting for the next decision to kick them into the past. On Saturday I spent all my waking time thinking about which college. Think about that. Involved in thought for an entire day. The consequence determines where I spend my next four years. How happy or miserable I'll be. How I'll spend all my time, excluding summers and a few breaks. Where I'll be geographically, whether I can go back home. What kind of environment, physically and in respect to the attitudes of the people around me. Thinking nonstop. Weighing the two options. My brain slowly decomposed. Melted into a gray gel. I kept having to push it back into my head. During the day I thought Grinnell would be better. At the end of the day, I attempted to give a decision. But, on their way to my mouth, the two names Collided with each other. They had a violent running-in and after socking the snot out of each other - this being inside my head, which didn't feel really hot - eventually decided that, since both couldn't go, neither would, and Miami shut off the lights behind them when I went to bed.
-Sunday, now. I got up and thought more. We went to church. Mom sought Pastor Curry's advice and prayer. I continued thinking. Grinnell and Miami battling it out at the exit ramp. Miami gained a foothold. I ate breakfast distractedly, and went home and thought and talked with Mom while thinking and thought. Then I walked up to Warder (barefoot, by the way) and climbed up a pine tree that Micah and I know. We call it the Ivory Tower. I hadn't been in it since last year. I realized that the ice storm we had this February really did a number on it. At least five really formidable branches had snapped off - branches six, seven inches in diameter. Sap was oozing prolifically from the nubs of the former branches. I climbed up to the top, which was slightly more difficult now, and several times stickier. Then I thought. I believe I sat in the Ivory Tower for at least two hours. Miami and Grinnell pushed and shoved. No holds barred. I didn't climb down all at once; rather, I came down a branch at a time whenever I was getting tired of the branch I was on. Ultimately, I jumped off the lowest branch in a pro-Grinnell mood. I visited some websites. The GORP website (Grinnell Outdoor Recreation Program), on the GOOP (Grinnell Outdoor Orientation Program) page. Greyhound's website. Something that started with R, something that started with C. RateMyProfessor.com, which is a very good resource. I went to bed having kept Mom up until 0130. At that time I finally told her Grinnell, but qualified it by telling her to keep her ears open the next morning in case I changed my mind again. My brain was now somewhere past fried. Charred, maybe.
-I thought until I got to sleep and then woke up at 0630 and I was struck by an overwhelming sense of dread at leaving home so far and for so long, being way the hell off in Iowa, and I thought about this too. I told Mom, "Now I want to go to Miami." And she said, "Okay, so do you want to make it Miami?" It was 0705. I leave for school at 0700 each day. I leaned my head down, let it suck into itself like a black hole, then tried to coax it to decompress; made a desperate rattling moaning noise, and forced out an inhuman: "Yeah." Then, "And no turning back."
-I biked to school. First band. We're playing a great song called Vesuvius, which is loud and in 9/8 time, and another one called October, which is possibly the smoothest and most beautiful concert band piece that a high school band can play, and another one called Duke Ellington in Concert, which I don't care for. Strictly speaking, Vesuvius isn't really in 9/8. It's in 4/4, 3/4, 9/8, 8/8, 1/4, 2/4, and 11/8. But the action part is in 9/8. After band, I went to psych, and Keith and I did notes. This is something we've been doing since we first had classes together back in 6th grade. Cartoons, recent things we've done, total nonsense, whatever. It all goes on the notes we pass back and forth.
-I had a vague inkling, which by the time psych was over had grown into a fully-fledged thought - "Ah no, not another thought!" - and I took it with me into bio 2nd bell. The thought was: "What am I doing? Miami? Why Miami? Grinnell! Grinnell is way better!" But this time, there was no warring. I just knew it, and though I can't pretend I had absolutely zero doubt, what doubt there was got swept away. Grinnell. It was really clear. I needed to call Mom at work and tell her.
-I had to try in between several different classes before I finally got a hold of her at the end of 5th bell. And then I was done. It turned out that all I needed to do in order to get an unconflicted thought was to stop thinking, which band and psych certainly made me do.
Now I will, as I've promised some of you, tell you how I decided what I decided.
Let me first off say that Miami and Grinnell are both excellent. It's not as if I decided on Grinnell because Miami is terrible and I suddenly realized it. If that were the case, I'd be a frickinidiot for putting myself into so much agony for so long. Plus, I was accepted into the Honors program at Miami. Here are some things Miami had going for it.
-It's close to home.
-It has more classes to choose from.
-I was in the Honors program. and I would be able to live in an Honors dorm.
-It has a 44-foot rock wall and an ice rink and (in Peffer Park) a giant sledding hill.
-There's also a big forest (Hueston Woods), something Iowa doesn't have a lot of.
But, here's some stuff it had in the minus column.
-There are drunkards everywhere.
-It's impersonal.
-It's probably harder to get into programs like the student newspaper, because they're really large.
-http://hs.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2200501989 (I don't know if you can get into this without a facebook account, but give it a try)
-Class requirements. This is a big one. There are 36 required credit-hours that you have to take in order to graduate, disributed nitpickingly across several different disciplines. On top of that, to graduate With Honors, you have to take ten Honors courses. I think these can overlap at least partially if not wholly with the required credit-hours, but they still limit the class choices that much more. By the time I got done with all my required classes, I would have been there for two years. When I realized this, I realized the Honors program is more of a hindrance then a help. Honors students are also required to keep a 3.5 gpa, and strongly encouraged to write a thesis.
Meanwhile, Grinnell was sitting there all like, "I've got these benefits."
-Really, really smart students and professors.
-Quiet small size.
-A rip-roarin' winter.
-I can elect (and have elected) to stay in a sub-free - substance-free - dorm.
-The open curriculum. There's only one class that's required for graduation, and I would take it if it weren't - the First-Year Tutorial. This isn't in a traditional subject like English or math, but rather it's something where you get to pick from a list of like 30 really fascinating and exhaustive subjects. Here's a list of them from last year, but they're totally different each year.
-Way more personal. The professor who teaches you the Tutorial becomes your advisor for the rest of your time there, and you get well acquainted with them. And everyone's nice*, and the professors are accessible. *generalization, but true from everything I've seen
But what kept me from it? Here are disadvantages.
-It is, as I say, way the hell out there in Iowa, and there are cornfields all around for like a thousand miles. There's a park, Rock Creek State Park, which has a nice lake, but it's not very well forested - just a few scrubby trees along the banks. Also, I'll be 400 miles from home.
-I think it's a bit more expensive.
-It has great classes, but not quite as many of them to choose from.
-Because it's small, there are fewer fine honeys to choose from.
However, I will finish with more of its benefits.
-I'm guranteed a job somewhere on campus to help pay for my Education.
-Most of Miami's broad selection of fine honeys are total airheads anyhow, and I'd have to be careful to get one that wasn't lousy.
-The classes are way better.
-I found a good amount of forests around, after doing some searching; there's the Conard Environmental Research Area (CERA), which has a 40-acre (1/4-mile square) oak forest; there's actually more forest in Rock Creek than I thought; there are other areas of forest around. And I can go to exotic (read: domestic) places with GORP, like perhaps Minnesota (I don't know this one for sure though), or the caves of Iowa (these apparently really exist), or Wisconsin (where GOOP is).
Sure, I'll probably get homesick. But this is the Information Age, you stupids. I'll open up a special private email account just for talking to home. I imagine I'll get frequent phone calls. Plus, the winter break is like four weeks long, and I can use that to take advantage of the hill in Peffer Park and catch up with the family and all that stuff. And of course I'll continue blogging until the end of time.
Now, who'll take this Miami t-shirt and Miami window cling that I got when I visited?
16 comments.
Way to go! I like the way you reason things out. And you're right. There are some good forests in Iowa. We had some in Des Moines, and there's a place called the Ledges State Park, which is supposed to be pretty. Great Grandpa's farm had a tree or two on it. Ha. And there are Maquoketa Caves near the Wapsipinicon River. In northwest Iowa there are Spirit Lake and Lake Okoboji. So it's not completely corn fields. And anyway, corn fields are beautiful when you make your living from them. You will love Iowa. Grandma
Grandpa and Grandma's farm had a couple of huge trees around the house, and a row of tall evergreens to shield from the wind. Most of the other farms have the same.
Plus, you get to live near a place called What Cheer.
Well done, Nathanael.
P.S. If you need any tips for how to deal with being far from home, I might know a thing or two about that.
I will be visiting A LOT and I suspect a lot of other people will, too.
I will take the shirt since I'm a product of Mother Miami.
Mom
Peoples need to remember to leave a name. Is that fourth comment you, BJ? Who are #2 and #3?
I think you made a good decision. Although between the two choices I believe there was no bad choice. I believe Grinnell is the place for you. Congratulations. Grandpa
Sorry. #2 and 3 were MOM.
Dad, this is Ann. It was you who predicted "He's going to Grinnell" last summer when he narrowed it down to the 5.
In my prejudiced opinion, you made an excellent choice! But then you'd have done well no matter where you'd have chosen to go. Your education will be as good as the effort you put into it.
Since the mighty elms were removed from the campus in the 1960's, Grinnell has made a great effort to plant a variety of trees on campus. Once (in the 1950's) I had an assignment to identify the Latin names of all the trees on campus for a biology class, and I was dumbfounded to discover how many there were.
Of course none of the professors from that era are still teaching, but as I look back at the ones who influenced me the most, they weren't necessarily in the major fields I was studying. One of the greatest was Grant Gale, a physics prof for whom the observatory was named. Another was William Guillermo, the biology prof from the class mentioned above.
You will have so many opportunities to learn, probably far beyond what you currently can invision. I wish you well.
And yes, you will get homesick. But that will subside as time goes by. You will make new friends and find much to do.
As for the weather, yes, it can get very cold in Grinnell, and it can snow a lot. But it doesn't stay cold, and it doesn't snow, all winter long. There will be mild periods along the way.
As for visitors, we may stop by sometime, coming or going to/from Arizona. And I have plans to attend the 1959 class reunion two years from now. However, students usually leave before reunion week.
Yes, it seems strange to me to have another family member heading to Grinnell after all these years. But I couldn't be more pleased. Way to go, class of 2011.
Aunt E.
P.S. And enjoy Rock Creek State Park!!!!!
Well, I think you made the right choice as well. The Miami crowd is a bit more materialistic than you probably care to be involved with. I do have to point out though that in your pro-con list you mentioned Miami's ice rink. That can only mean that you are a closet hockey fan. And had I not exposed you in that last sentence you would still be in the closet.
Just one piece of advice as you move forward in life. Swallow your bread all the way down before burping and sipping your root beer, this will help avoid snarfing and causing hot college chicks to dislike you.
Good luck!
Dan
Advice from Mom:
Always avoid comma splices, they are irritating.
Remember to never split infinitives.
Active, not passive, languages should be used.
A preposition is not a good thing to end a sentence with.
Don't tug on Superman's cape. Don't spit into the wind. Don't pull on the mask of the old lone ranger and don't mess around with...people who repeat old Jim Croce songs.
That should be "language", not "languages." sheesh-
Mom.
Yup, I too think you made the right choice. And I'm no more prejudiced than Aunt E.
I have sent you a book written by a G. professor, who just happens to teach creative writing...
I met him at the reunion last year when he talked about his book to the alumni, and I really wanted to read it because it was about autism.
I emailed him to thank him for the book and tell him how much I had enjoyed reading it (and that I had sent it to my whole family). He responded within the hour thanking me for the support, telling me to let him know if I was ever on campus, and asking me to tell my Grinnell-bound grandnephew to drop by and see him.
Hint: Authors love to talk about their books! I imagine he would really like to hear your point of view, especially if it's a positive one.
Enjoy!
Love, Aunt I.
I have the book and I love it. In fact, I would love to take Hayden there to meet him sometime.
Ann
Hey Nathanael, I have a blog now.
Click on my name and check it out.
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