Building on new dreams.

As a little kid, I always knew that college was the place to go after high school; it was just a matter of figuring out exactly what college was. Heck, I didn’t even realize the confusion that high school would ensue. So many classes! Block Scheduling?? Freshman Initiation?!?

Then, just as high school was beginning to make sense, the college visits arrived during sophomore year. My sister, a year older school-wise, was starting her journey through the
Great College Search and I figured it made sense to go ahead and get a head start on mine. Looking back upon those days, I realize what a romantic view of college I had. Not just in the sense that campuses would be swarming with pretty college boys, but that it would be all fun and games, only rainbows and butterflies. College was supposed to be a whole great crazy adventure. “It is what you may call a castle” (Hardy 23). My college castle was going to be filled with kings, queens, knights in armor, and court games. I didn’t realize how much work it would take to even get into college. I was a high school sophomore who hadn’t even taken an AP “college level” class before– what did I know? However, it wasn’t long before “the whole scheme burst up, like an iridescent soap bubble” (Hardy 94).

By the time junior year hit, high school was a lot of work. I don’t quite have the brilliance that just oozes out of most of the Plan II kids – while alot of people I've talked to can laugh about the joke their high school years were, I worked my butt off. When it wasn’t homework, band successfully sucked away any semblance of a life I might have had. Don’t get me wrong: band brought great memories, experiences and best friends that I will cherish forever, and the schoolwork gave me results to be proud of – but was it really worth all those times I turned down hanging out with friends to instead cuddle with books?

My college visits throughout sophomore year and the summer that followed filled me with ambition to end up in one of those legendary colleges. I became determined to make sure my dreaded bonding time with the books was not all done in vain. I wanted a place with a name and a face to impress (as long as it was sunny and warm). Some place mysterious and far away. Some place like Stanford, WashU or USC that would bring ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’. Some place that was known by all as “a citadel of enlightenment” (X639).Good thing that’s not what college is about. I, like Jude, “found [my]self clinging to the hope” (Hardy 93) that I could go to a fascinating out of state school. I desperately even enrolled in one, and still get heart-wrenching mail from them, to this day. However, I am glad that like Jude, I also “awoke from [my] dream” (Hardy 94).

As I “progress into adulthood and try to choose [my] lives” (DB no.1), I could not be more thankful for this wonderful place I now call home. This place is definitely worth it. With Plan II, we obviously get our intensive education. But from this place, we learn so much more than we would have from an exclusive, gated-in community in some other part of the country. In Austin, we learn to truly thrive. We have such a lively city staring us in the face – we learn to balance the books and the fun. I cannot help feel, with my burnt orange blood, that this wonderland we are in will shape us into some of the most able, passionate people in the world.