Well, I'm all done now. Total count:
Syracuse--Yes
Brown--NO
Cornell--/shrug
U-Mass--/shrug
Sarah Lawrence--loved it, but hope I can get financial aid. That school is expensive.
LIU at Southampton--See Sarah Lawrence
Columbia--didn't really like it that much
Hunter--everything was loud and purple---Um...NO
Brooklyn--Liked it, but not THAT much
Didn't even bother to go to NYU and Eugene Lang/new school. So, that's where I sit so far. Now to deal with the rest of the country.

Hated Brown, Loved Syracuse, Am rather indifferent to U-Mass, and to Cornell so far. Still have 6 more schools to go.

Ok, so maybe I didn't lose all the previous posts. I'm happy about that.

Anyway, I'm in NY now for a week and a half. I'll be seeing all the schools that are up here. It's a little frazzling, there are a lot of them, so, I'm a little apprehensive about getting it all done. Wish me luck, everyone.

I haven't been able to figure out why my comments are working, so I'm going to redo them. Unfortunately, that means I've lost all the previous comments.

I'm not sure why my comments aren't working. Hmmm....seems to be a little weird.

I'm feeling much better since my last post. Of course, the situation with my student really upset me, but sometimes that just comes with the job.

As I have said repeatedly, the students rarely upset me. The parents often do.

Thank you all for your support though. Sometimes it's nice to know when I've done the right thing.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But some days, I come home exhausted. There are days when I want to give the children the whole world. Take all the problems from them put them in a box and throw them to the sun, and it drives me insane that I can't.

When they cry because Mom and Dad don't care whether or not they are in school, or really where they are when they aren't in school. When they cry because some insensitive guy or girl has broken their hearts. When life seems like it is not worth it and there are scrapes and cuts all down their arms. When there are burn marks on their hands, necks, arms. When it seems like they have no hope....That's when my job is hard.

They know they can talk to me. I won't tell people what they say, but when they start wanting suicide, I have to break that rule. And it's hard.

What do you say to a girl who doesn't want to live?

Not that I've been avoiding writing, but I've been avoiding writing.

Life is full of contradicitons, and I often find myself one of them. Not that I don't make sense sometimes, but sometimes, well, I don't make sense.

{{sits back, and tries to go at this another way}}

Moving is a very exciting, and frightening process. As my first official trip on the long and increasingly twisted road towards that eventual goal approaches, I find myself more apprehensive than excited. I'm excited about my trip, but apprehensive that I won't be able to make the decision, or that I won't be able to get in where I want to go if I can make the decision.

Ok, I know I'm whining a bit, and my lack of self-confidence is showing itself like a slip under my skirt of writer's ego, but it really is scary. All of us are allowed to be a little unsure of ourselves occasionally.

Having gone to the cafe and failed to find any inspiration there either, I will resign myself to just babbling a bit.

I'm currently in the process of selecting a Master of Fine Arts program for creative writing. It's really quite a pain in the butt. I have a list of about 30 schools or so to wade through and many of them offer exactly the same positive aspects. My challenge is to discover the hidden aspects of each school. That is a task I can't do sight unseen, so I'm off to fly, or drive about the country and look at places.

I've been to NYC once. My reaction was probably identical to that of hordes of others seeing the city for the first time. It's big--very, very big. A lot of really good schools are there, so I am going back for a visit. The idea of living in a city like that, quite frankly, frightens me. I got to meet Nikki Giovanni once. She told me that if I were going to get an MFA and I wanted to get anything done, to move to Montana, because there is nothing to do, but never move to NY because I'd be too busy to write. I can see why this would work for most people, but considering how much I hate actually being in amongst people, I don't know that it really applies to me. In Montana, I could walk the mountains and be outdoors all the time, running around and seeing the sights. In NYC, I would be one in howevermanypeopleinthecity--a nameless face and a bump on the sidewalk. People jostling about me everytime I stepped out of my door. This would make me loathe to step out of the door, therefore, being virtually home bound, I'm sure I could find time to write a sequel to War and Peace, if I indeed believed that a sequel should be written and if it could be written in poetry.

Be that as it may, I'm still afraid to move there. Perhaps West Virginia would be better.