So (far so good) for the Afterglow

Want to get something off your shoulders, Magnus?

That’s me.  That’s how I felt.  The guy, with the thing, and it's heavy, and he can't drop it.  Yeah, that was me, a pretty good representation of it, but now that I’ve made my decision--much better.  Honestly, I think I would feel the same way had I decided to stay in St. Louis, assuming that I could have owned that choice as vehemently.  A wise man (Milos Foreman) once said this (while playing a priest in Edward Norton’s 2000 romcom Keeping the Faith);  

The truth is you can never tell yourself there is only one thing you could be. If you are a priest or if you marry a woman it's the same challenge. You cannot make a real commitment unless you accept that it's a choice that you keep making again and again and again. 

Granted Foreman was trying to advise a confused Father Norton on jonsing for Jenna Elfman (remember when she was a thing?  Crazy, right?), but the point remains; perception is all about choice.  Making this choice has energized me and galvanized my grad school path.  Going to grad school is not the only thing that I could do, but it’s what I want to do, it’s what I’ve chosen to do and because of that, it’s that much more important to me. 

The true take away from this flick: the jewish guy gets the girl.

There are lot of specifics that I need to tackle before getting to Columbia, perhaps the biggest of which is figuring out how to survive on $6,000 my first year, but hey, that’s really future Jeremy’s problem.  He’ll work it out.  He always usually occasionally does.  Right now I have a peace of mind that I haven’t had since those glorious three weeks between submitting my applications and receiving the first piece of grad school news—ironically Mizzou both crumbled and re-initiated that feeling. 

The good news for you, the reader, is that I shall be continuing this blog as a chronicle of grad school preparation, which will eventually flow into the blog, Just Dumb Enough… to go to Grad School.