i hear you! i have to start worrying about financial stuff now and scholarships and i really don't want to. it causes these dumb arguments that end the same way every time and it's not fun.

I don't have arguments, I just get yelled, and I don't respond. I am a passive person, I don't do much confrontation.

"I met a DJ who lived in seclusion
Reality and sobriety were her only delusions"

i adore that quote.

yeah, i'm mellow unless something really pisses me off. then i argue.

but my thing right now is, when i graduate, i automatically get a full scholarship for any in-state school and i refuse to spend four or more years here. the folks really like the idea of not having to pay a cent and well, i like the idea of columbia. it's headache-inducing.

I want to move to new york. I regret not studying very hard in High School. I would have been there already.

i've had the choice to skip a few grades in the past, and i could have been around halfway through college now. but i have no regrets, that'd just be too stressful.

i hate studying. i refuse to do it unless i feel i really need to.

this writer's block isn't really helping my fears about whatever's coming next in the future.

Yeah, and since you want to leave. that would have been hard. People tell me I am smart, but I seriously doubt them. Just because I read, and know some stuff they have the audacity to call me smart. I wonder what they see in me when they call me that. My boyfriend calls me smart, but I just can't see it.

i think you're smart.

columbia is great, what are you thinking of doing there?

studying literature and computer science. then for my mfa i want to do the creative writing program they have.

that alone puts you in the top 90% of the general population.

congrats!

sweet. that's an unusual combo, but familiar to me-- i have an m.a. in literature but work with computers,;and my undergrad was in biology & math-- ha ha ha.

anyway, hm, here's something you may not know-- generally, it is preferred that you go to a different school for you graduate program. not sure why, but it's kind of... frowned upon? they'll accept you, but people tend to think it's worth less. im saying generally. don't ask me to understand stuffy academics, i'm simply a reporter here...

so, if you want to go to the MFA program at columbia, you could go to a different undergrad school. however-- maybe it's too soon to think about gradschool, stick to the college of your dreams for now & in 5 years you'll have a different perspective.

btw, i have a friend who did the columbia MFA in a year-- he's a journalist & works for a very large newspaper, & is working on some book in his spare time. spare time! is there such a thing?

anyway not sure what your mfa concentration is going to be on, but iowa (yes, iowa) has a famous mfa program, and then utexas @ austin has a very unusual one as well, more geared towards professional writers. http://www.utexas.edu/academic/mcw/

oooh! looked what i found! ofthen these rankings are shit, but some times they mean something you know? these are old anyway but here you go:
http://www-as.phy.ohiou.edu/~rouzie/...University.htm

what else what else-- oh yes- very important. i hope you're not disappointed with the study of literature in college. the first thing those fuckers will try to teach you is that there is no such thing as "literature". then they will try to make you read stupid "critical theories" and value them as superior as the books they refer to. it's an excuse to practice bad philosophy with a literary excuse. it's quite quite sad. but since i'm warning you, you'll have time to figure it out. but hopefully your teachers will favor the careful reading of authors rather than the unintelligible writings of french wankers.

hm, this page has a shitty layout, but looks like you'll have fun!

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/admission...ook/sect4.html

it's a good thing you're not vain then, but cmon! humility can only get you so far :D

hah, thank you for making me feel like less of a weirdo for my combo i have going.

i actually never really thought about the different grad school thing. a few of my other schools i'm considering are on that list. maybe that'll work out. but i have read up about iowa's program and i really like it.

and, simply, thank you for the last paragraph.

schizo, whatever you do, try to make the best of it and enjoy it.

exchange Barbs?

like Barbara Walters for Barbara Bush?

No, man, l know what you mean.
You got all these responsibilities now.

-You're married, you got a kid,
it looks like your whole life is set down...
Where's the excitement?

Yeah, Glen, l guess that's it.

-OK, that's the disease, but you got the cure.

Yeah?

-Dr. Glen is here to tell you
that you can heal thyself.

What do l gotta do?

- Well, you just gotta broaden your mind.
Say if l was to ask you
''What do you think about Dot?''

Well, she's a fine woman you got there.

-Okay, now you might not know it
to look at her, but she's a hellcat.

That right?

- T-l-G-E-R.

Well, what's that gotta do with...

- Now, don't rush me...
The thing about Dot is...
She told me this. She thinks...
She thinks you're cute.

Yeah?

-Im not crappin' you negative.
And l could say the same thing about Ed.

What are you talkin' about, Glen?

- What am l talkin' about?

l'm talkin' about sex.
What are you talkin' about?
l'm talkin' about l'amour.
l'm talkin' that me and Dot are swingers.
As in, "to swing."
l'm talkin' about wife-swappin'.
l'm talkin' about what they
call now ''open marriage''...

Now you just keep your goddamn hands off my wife.

-l was only tryin' to help! You're crazy!
You're crazy, man!

Keep your goddamn hands off my wife!

-You're crazy! l pity you!

---
-We finally go out with some decent people
and you break his nose. That ain't funny, Hi.

His kids seemed to think it was funny.

-Well, they're just kids.
You're a grown man with responsibilities.
Whatever possessed ya?

He was provokin' me.

- How'd he do that?

Never mind.

- But, Hi, he's your foreman.
He's just gonna fire you now.

l expect he will.

that's what i aim for.

atari- bwaha.

we have nothing in to drink that isn't capri sun or expired soda (not counting alcohol). i'm thirsty as hell.

barb:




"she's like butter"

schizo: you don't know how much i enjoyed my time at college, but i'll be damned if i ever want to work in the field, i see my friends and i shudder; advertising is not so bad, but i would need some poser-aggression supressing pills for that.

hah. that's why i'm going into computer science on the side, in case i go nuts from writing, i can fall back on something.

advertising sounds fun.

if you score the creative consultant job, that's like heaven and heroin only they pay you to do it and you don't have to die. it's just thinking random junk until it makes sense to people who want to develop them for ads and stuff. the problem is that every stoner and every nutjob in the world are after that position and people tend not to get fired or quit from these positions. the best chance is starting an ad agency, which is not such a bad idea, might try and do it with a couple of my college buddies in a few years.

as a person that is currently "employed" as a writer i can tell you that it's a great job, it's a great way to make a living although the money isn't good. you have to really think about it and decide whether you'd like to sacrifice time and take many writing jobs to get a decent paycheck or would you rather make do with what you get. but it's pretty sweet, and you are a good writer, so i don't have doubts about you actually doing a good job.