a jolt to the inner self

before diving into the last of my homework today, i decided to check the email account to which i've been trying to switch over (unsuccessfully), and discovered that i have ten dollars worth of new fines due at the library, and that evergreen state college still wants me to apply.

or wanted me to, anyway, on march 14th. i clicked the apply online button just to check the form out, and it signed me in automatically--which made me think, how weird, i started applying here already? i didn't think any more of it until i closed out of the form, which took me to a homepage i didn't recognize. it was divided into two parts: submitted forms, and forms in progress. guess what was under the submitted forms? my art institute of portland application!! i thought, how the fuck did evergreen get that? but apparently aipd and evergreen use the same company to manage their online apps, and i wasn't on evergreen's website anymore, but rather on the commonapp-like website made for less prestigious institutions (i'm judging "prestige" prematurely, here... perhaps i'm wrong in my assumption).

that's only part of the story, one that has no real purpose except to explain how i got a hold of my personal statement, written when i was seventeen years old, on october 18th, 2007:

In a world of increasingly fierce competition, it is my goal to thrive. I don't want a nondescript office job where I will only read about the success of others; rather, I want to be living my dreams and working to leave my mark on this world. My goal to become a prominent graphic designer will be more likely achieved with an education at the Art Institute. The fact that this school is so career-driven will make it possible to focus the majority of my time and attention on mastering the skills I will need as a graphic designer, instead of scattering my energy to learn various subjects only faintly connected to my career.

Additionally, the low student-teacher ratio and the serious schedule found at AI will ensure that my time in college won't go to waste. Instead, I will be driven to fine-tune my abilities as a designer and leave school feeling ready to achieve my goals. I strongly believe that by entering the Art Institute of Portland, I will take an enormous step towards building a foundation for a lifetime of success.

can i say shocking?! i don't recognize whoever wrote this garbage--she should be pleased to know that today, i care nothing about "increasingly fierce" corporate competition (except to lament its destruction of the environment and interference with social justice in its race for the highest financial returns). i am happily spending dozens of credit hours "scattering my energy to learn various subjects only faintly connected to my career" at a community college that costs a sixth of aipd's tuition and still boasts a relatively low teacher-student ratio. and the "lifetime of success" bullshit? come on! there is no success without failure, and besides--did i really think that graphic design wasn't largely composed of sitting in a "nondescript office," that my "success" wouldn't depend almost entirely on the proportion of hours spent on the computer versus hours spent on life?

i did, actually. i did. perhaps i knew it was all a lie while i writing it, cleanly composing my sentences to fit what the art institute was looking for. but i don't think so--i think i really believed that i wanted to do this. and that scares me now, because i'm in the process of figuring out all my transfer stuff, and i probably don't really know what i want, or what i'm looking for. and that makes me think, i need to slow down and ask myself some really uncomfortable questions (and dig them out honestly) before i commit to another disaster.