Thursday, February 15, 2007

The Real Game Starts

I think that one of the things about growing up is realizing that there is a world beyond my own.

When I was small, everything that I did was for the here and now. If I played for a prize, it was some candy that I was going to get in a couple of minutes. Otherwise, it was for the fun of playing... and everything was a game. I do not just mean the tag and Nintendo, but the schoolwork and lessons. Even in high school, I did not take classes that I did not like. Alright, I did strategize in order to make the best college application that I could, but I only did that because it was like a really big game. It was either strategize for that or take them randomly. I have always been a fan of order, so I planned, not because I was particularly ambitious, but because it was fun.

Then that fun changed. At the end of my junior year, I started applying to college, and figuring out where I could apply with realistic chances and… well… life turned serious. My game of high school turned out to have real consequences. I was looking at test scores on collegeboard.com’s college profiles, trying to find a reach school, and well, I could not. Even at Yale, my scores were at the upper end of their range. Suddenly, my game turned out to be real.

This completely rocked my boat. I had brushed off the private school as something that I could do, therefore it was no big deal. Then I realize that I can do the Ivy Leagues too. If nothing else, their fame forced me to see that I was not playing a game. I always thought that my friends were joking when they said that they wanted to go to Harvard or Stanford. Then I find out that they actually have a chance, a realistic expectation to go there. My world is turned upside down! Things that I thought were just fanciful dreams, hopeless ambitions, they are real.

When I was small, I found out the Santa Clause was my mother, Camelot never existed, and light-speed travel has yet to be invented. I also made the conclusion that New York City did not exist. It followed the trend. When people think nobility, they think Camelot, but there are no historical artifacts from that mystical city. When people think of the new world and technology, they think space travel, but the moon is the furthest a human has gone. Whenever someone thought of a city, they thought “New York”, but I did not personally know anyone who had been there. When I found out that it did, in fact, exist, I pushed it to the back of my mind as “well, nobody goes there”.

Then came that fateful junior year.

BOOM! (that was my world exploding.) Suddenly, I find out that the coasts are real possibilities. Many of my friends fully intend to leave and never come back. This is even more of a shock, to find out that I was expected to continue the Midwest brain-drain. First I find out the rest of the world exists, then I find out that I am supposed to go there? Somewhere people do not know how to play Euchre? Where the ocean is a weekend destination? Where crime is rampant and people are rude? Where it is possible to survive without a driver’s license? Where you have to pay for everything, but can buy anything? I am not sure that I will be able to survive in such a foreign world.

However, I am now nearing the end of my senior year, and am getting used to the prospect of the rest of the world, even enamored. If I were able to get into Yale, actually attend there, what else might I be able to do? Now, I listen to the radio on the way to school, not thinking about those silly people on the coast, but thinking, “that could be me.” I look at an atlas, and see all the roads and cities and population and think that there are actually people living there. It is not just a political force or a vacation destination, but a home and way of life. I have always known these facts, but have only recently come to realize their implications. I know that this is my youth speaking, but I feel like I can go out and do anything. The rest of the world is just as real the climbing tree in my yard.

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