for
1/13/2001
So you're looking at colleges, eh? Here's a bit of advice: Panic.
Because you're sorting through a thousand variables, struggling only to narrow your choices until, at some point, you've narrowed your choices too far, and there's nothing left in your subset. Back up. Try again. You smell cheese in this maze somewhere.
First thing's first; what do you want? That's the question they always ask. What do you want?
Well how the bloody schmuck should you know? You've never been to college. Even if you had, you'd only really know about one college, and how many are there? Like a billion? Exactly.
So, my friends, I invite you to indulge your fight-or-flight instinct and P-A-N-I-C. Start panicking now. Keep panicking.
And no, this isn't some wimpy admonition to start panicking now, and get it out of your system. I'm telling you you need to panic! Panic early only to strengthen your muscles for panicking. You'll need them more than you may think.
Because, at some point, you'll find yourself forced to place your entire personality on a piece of paper, without even using diagrams. (I, personally, got around that by making word pictures, but I'm not sure I'd recommend that.) Here's something to keep in mind: a few weeks after you mail your forms in, they will wind up in a room with several bored people who are reading a lot of crappy essays -- understand the ramifications of this, and you'll do fine.
You'll find yourself dealing with amounts of money you'd only have dealt with before if you'd opted out of college and bought that pickup truck. Or if you were a stern man on a lobster boat, or a drug dealer. Or all three. But you didn't, you weren't and you aren't. You're going to college, and that spells lots of money. And worst of all, you're borrowing it.
Eventually, you'll find yourself in an overloaded car pulling up to a place you'd only visited briefly, and you'll have to stay there.
What am I saying? Say it with me. Out loud, please. "Panic!" Louder now: "Panic!!!" Say it like you mean it! "Panic!!!" Now mean it. "PANIC!" Show me the money! "PANIC!!!" And once more! "PAAAAA-NIC!!!"
Good good good. You're half way to enlightenment.
Because, at the end of your first semester, if your school hasn't started a Frisbee team, you'll probably find yourself burned out on the whole place, and thinking about transferring, taking a year off, doing that pickup/drug-dealer thing, or just plain getting drunk and waking up with someone ugly. Do not do this last thing. Just panic. Healthy panic.
Because you'll miss your friends, you'll magically get along with your family (in small doses), and you won't believe how fucked up people from a slightly different geographic region of the country can be.
Because, by the end of semester three, you'll be thinking much the same thing, only now you'll be serious, and you'll realize (better put this in 's) that choosing a new college is no easier than choosing a first college. And you're right back where you started.
So while some people obviously wouldn't advocate the Space Toast Panic Method, I'm afraid you really have no other logical course of action. Panic, damn you, if you're interested in going to college.
Because someday you'll be out of college.
Touch the Toast