Never Make Decisions After 10pm

There were a number of times during senior year when Amanda and I would be laying in our beds chatting into the wee hours of the night or singing along to Mumford and Celine.  Sometimes we would think up these grand plans of things we were going to do, usually related to our social lives.  One night, after proposing something that was probably wicked stupid, Amanda pointed out the stupidity of this idea, and told me that we should never make decisions after 10pm.  If you think of something you want to do and it's already after 10pm, you should probably sleep on it and wait until the morning and then if it's still a good idea after you have a well-rested mind, then go for it.  But nine times out of ten, it's usually not.

Unfortunately I broke this cardinal rule last night.  Nothing tragic or really detrimental at all- maybe a bit to my bank account, but the decision leads to more things I really need to think about.

I'm currently in the process of applying to grad schools for a Masters of Education in Secondary Teaching.  I've been looking through programs and schools for the last month and had decided on UVA, Vanderbilt, and BC.  Since I wasn't certain about my intended program until around Christmas, I've missed deadlines for a lot of schools- luckily UVA isn't until February 15, and Vandy was Dec 31st but has rolling admissions.  I emailed BC though, and it took a number of days for someone to get back to me- their deadline had passed but I was told I could still apply, although faculty reviewers were not required to look at my application.  I scrambled through the complicated online application that was almost like a game- having to go through different steps and receive clearance to go to the next steps (yet undergraduate uses the Common App I think...weird).  Also, BC was the one school out of the ones I was applying to that required recommenders to mail their letters, rather than submitting them online.  (Not surprised though, considering the UIS software for choosing classes that's probably from the 1980s...)  Finally, the Lynch School didn't even really have the program I wanted, and I wasn't exactly qualified to apply to a different program.  It was at this point, sometime after midnight last night, that I realized that it made absolutely no sense to apply to BC.

Problem.  I had already paid the $60 application fee and paid $25 to mail them my GRE scores.  Decisions I made after 10pm last night.

As I said, nothing crazy bad- just a bit of cash out of the pocket...I'm calling it my alumni gift to BC ;)

Anyways, the realization that I wasn't even applying to BC hit me hard, and at 1am, after working for many hours of the every day for the last week, I was quite emotional.  I called up Mark, I sent a dozen emails to my mother, and even more to one of my professors who's been writing recs for me about the 5238956 times I changed my plans within a three hour time frame.

I decided to apply to BU instead....even though it's BU and the price tag is absurdly high, I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't give myself the option to go back to Boston.  When I left Boston at the end of the summer, I knew I would be coming back after my year in Germany, whether it was for work or grad school, and now the realization that I will actually probably not be returning to my beloved city is sinking in, and I don't know how to feel.

Vandy's Peabody College is the #1 graduate school for education in the country and I would love to experience Nashville; UVA is also a wonderfully renowned university, and I've always had a soft spot for it since I was very, very close to enrolling there for my undergrad (BC won by just a hair, but it's a decision I have never regretted) and I would also be receiving in-state tuition-- therefore, it would only be logical to enroll at either of those over BU, if offered admission to either.

These programs are only two years, so I could be back in Boston as early as the summer of 2015, but the thought of going somewhere else kind of scares me.  Some people take a long time to get over relationships and people....well, I'm taking a long time to get over a place.  In the midst of my crisis last night, Mollie told me that I need to stop believing that  Boston is the only place I can be happy.  She's absolutely right.  And I can't figure out if it's just the people there that make me want to go back so much, or the fact that I just spent the four best years of my life there, or what.  It's an amalgam of all of those factors (and doesn't help that my mom, originally hailing from the great state of Massachusetts, raised me to love New England and all of its sports teams and culture).

I keep forgetting how young I am, and that I really do have my whole life ahead of me, and that if I go back to Boston now, I will never leave, so maybe I should experience somewhere else.  The thought of experiencing Nashville is really exciting- especially since I've recently become obsessed with country music, and it's a similar size city to Boston; it would also be great to experience Charlottesville, after visiting so many times and would be great to be close to all my friends and family--closer than a flight or a seven hour car ride.

Those are my running thoughts.  I finally fell asleep last night, somewhere around halftime of the BCS Championship game, and after waking up this morning, my head was clearer and I know that no matter where I end up, it's going to be great.  Just gotta take a step back and realize that my life is pretty fabulous, and that if the biggest of my current problems is freaking out about spending another two years away from Boston, I ain't got much to complain about.

Speaking of the BCS game though, of course BC hates Notre Dame, and I told Jennie I could not root for her school, but my Facebook Newsfeed last night was actually hilarious.

Those were all consecutive posts on my newsfeed- not one thing between posts by BC students alum hating on ND...ending with Michael George's status, who graduated with Jennie in 2012...and was the ND leprechaun.  I hate rooting against teams (okay, unless its the Giants or the Yankees), but I will say I was very happy that 'Bama won. #RollTide.