As I sat squeezed between my good friends, Sam and Jonathan, on a concrete ledge thing outside the Illinois state competition for competitive high school theater, I scrolled through my phone and read an acceptance letter from Boston University. Next year, I’m moving to Massachusetts. Which I don’t even know how to spell yet without help from Microsoft.
I’m ecstatic. I’m absolutely, extraordinarily, irrevocably, ardently, and [insert every other positive adverb here] happy. Next year, I’m going to be studying secondary English education at one of the best teaching schools in the country. I’ll be terrier.
Their mascot is the terrier. The Boston Terriers.
Come on. How cool is that?
I just want to remind you, dear reader, that I live in Illinois. BU is exactly 1,001 miles from my home. And then you have to take into consideration where all my good friends are going to school. A handful are staying in Illinois but going south, one’s probably moving to Michigan, and then there’s another who’ll end up in California.
In deciding what book to bring this back to, I decided to pick Jane Eyre.
Now while my life isn’t a gothic masterpiece (yet), there is a part I can kind of relate to. It’s when she’s moving away from Lowood and taking up a job as governess to Mr. Rochester’s maybe-kinda love child. I like to think that Adele’s baby daddy is Rochester. It’s much more sassy and scandalous that way.
I’m a pretty quiet person. Granted, my most primary character traits tend to lead towards “sharp-tongued,” “forceful,” and my favorite of all the PC words for “bitch,” “opinionated.” Still, I like my tea and classic literature. Clearly. Moving to Boston is a pretty big leap for me. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana–all of those states in between my two homes are pretty significant.
Ok, all right, I realize that all of this is pretty basic in the realm of college topics. But wait, there’s more!
My best friend in the whole wide world read Jane Eyre a few months ago and told me, quite thoughtfully, that it’s like the Van Gogh of literature. I’m still trying to get over how fantastic that imagery is. Try to think of Charlotte’s phenomenal words spreading out and thickening into masses of vibrant color, each page like a Starry Night. The horrible English plains and storms dripping across the story of Jane.
That’s what college is doing to me. The complete novelty and significance is overwhelming. It’s an emotional occurence comparable to the artistic or sensory experience of books like Jane Eyre or paintings like Starry Night. I’ve been thrown into a glittering daze of heightened everything. I was riding the bus home from the afore-mentioned state tournament and looking at the two friends who had sat next to me and thought about how proud I am that we had all turned out so well. All of us growing and graduating seems so beautiful all of a sudden.
So, there. It isn’t the most magnificently articulated concept I’ve garbled out in a while, but the whole thing is certainly hogging a great deal of mind power right about now. Also, my newly planned significant move across the country should make for a much more interesting blog.
In my post-acceptance-letter-haze, I’ve been ordering BU garb, taking google earth tours, planning a real life tour for this Friday, looking up Boston real estate, checking the BU class of 2016 page obsessively, and generally rolling around in a pile of smiles.
Also, I’m learning the ukulele.
(I’m not completely sure that “Also, I’m learning the ukulele” is a sufficient closing sentence, but I’m kind of at a loss for how to finish this up).
Go Terriers!
