The Finite

I’m sure you’re all wondering about my college plans. Well, let’s see…

I applied to three different schools. UIUC, Purdue, Yale. I applied to U of I first for Early Decision because it was in-state, well-known for its college of Psychology, and I’d have the company of some familiar faces. Purdue was a backup that has the second best pharmacy program in the nation. Yale, which also offers a Psych major, is 100% pure pipe dream. Just as Venegoni promised me, UIUC, my top choice, accepted me.

Unfortunately, my family has been pushing me into a career selling drugs. Almost every Asian grandmother with a connection on the grape vine has heard of the expected shortage of pharmacists in Illinois over the next ten years. And that’s why my aunt, my grandmother, and my mom are all pushing me into a pharmacy degree. It’s all a part of Grandma’s master plan: the first immigrating wave of our family would get blue-collar jobs in as factory workers and accountants. Their children would advance to the level of nurses and pharmacists, their grandchildren to the level of engineers and optometrists. I’ll spare you the details, but this plan culminates in the Oval Office. My birth places me in phase two. According to my grandmother’s schematic, I should be a pharmacist with a yearly salary in the $80,000 – $120,000 range for approximately 40 years, married, 2.1 kids, giant house that’s maintained at a constant 77° year-round, and a midsize SUV with GPS navigation built into the dash.

Grandma’s plan is built on two very important factors: economic stability and filial piety. By the second I am referring to the age-old Confucian virtue that extols utmost respect for parents and elders, and repression of rebelliousness. As you already know, the problem for Grandma is I don’t really want to be a pharmacist. Sure, I was born and raised on the North Side of Chicago, but dispensing drugs? Nope, can’t say I’m a fan.

When everyone found out I wanted to go into psychology, things went a little nuclear.

First there was the line of aunts (along with one tenacious uncle who doggedly tried to push me into engineering) all saying that being a social worker was beneath me (obviously a representative heuristic) and that there would be no jobs for psych majors anyway. (Note: I never wanted to become a social worker in the first place.) They apparently can’t think of any jobs for Psych majors. Once again, I used my crying autistic cousin as an excuse to escape the room.

More recently they have presented more convincing arguments.

1. If I go into a major other than pharmacy, I won’t be given the money to finish college.

2. If I go into a major other than pharmacy, Grandma will ritualistically kill me with this knife.

I can’t read Chinese very well but I theorize that the ideograms say something to the effect of consummation of writers’ folly (至聖先師) which has spilled the blood of countless would-be liberal arts majors for centuries.

Pretty convincing stuff. So I’ll have to get back to Purdue about that housing request…

So I did it. Let me tell you the tale.

I started at 2:00PM on Thursday, leaving me 25 hours for 2751 words. I actually stuck to my thesis this time, though that may be or may not be a good thing. It was just an analysis of the themes of Gulliver’s Travels and Voltaire’s Candide. Advocating a middle road, blah blah, Christian perfectionism, ridicule of rationalism, yadda yadda yadda. I really don’t want to ever have to think about it again.

I worked straight through 14 hours and 1966 words before I ran out of will power to keep my eyes open. It turns out my earlier graph was pretty much correct, as I (intermittantly) recorded my progress.

Several brief hours later, at 7:02AM, I’m in my skivvies frantically shoving my laptop into my backpack while Schmitz impatiently idles in the driveway. At 7:21, I run franticly into school holding my secrets to success: a box of oatmeal breakfast bars and a caffeine delivery system (otherwise known as a bottle of Bawls) that Schmitz found frozen in his car.

My game plan was this: since there was no Chem Lab final and attendance was not required, I was going to take the Psych exam 8th period instead of 5th so that I could perform before my body realized it was tired. The caffeine and, if necessary, sugar boost of the oatmeal bars would keep me going enough to finish the 700 words required for an ‘A’ by 3:00PM.

Dumping all my stuff in the psych room, I asked Mrs. A if I could check in with Cassidy for 8th period (since I couldn’t get called out). She did what teachers rarely do: looked me straight in the eye and said, “run”. In seconds, I and my wet shoes were out of that classroom making squeaks with each step. (The shoes were, not me.) I did a really cool powerslide around a corner that I’m disappointed that no one saw. When I got to Cassidy, it turns out no words needed to be said. I only needed to make eye contact before he nodded.

When I got up to room 215, I prepared for the 100-question test by taking a deep swig of the Bawls. The thing was, since it was frozen in the car, the solutes precipitated out of the solid water component. Basically I slurped a layer of super-concentrated super-caffeinated syrup. DAMN! It’s like being punched in the amygdala. I blazed through the test in 60 minutes and secured my ‘A’ (only six wrong answers more and I would have gotten a ‘B’).

I then set up shop (laptop + books) in the Writing Well, where I put out another 300 words but began to feel the effects of the three hours of sleep catch up to me. After the bell rang and the day ended for everyone else, I moved to room 157 where I finished and had it proofread. I ran the final copy down to V’s office at 2:25 with 35 minutes to spare. I also found out I got an A- on the exam. This doesn’t help much since V couldn’t care less for mygradebook. So there are now two class grades not yet solidified. Cassidy still has to grade the Chem lab final and V has an essay that determines my grade. But, oh, the joys of freedom! The impulses… so much… so fast. It’s glorious! I think… I think I’ll shoot some Nazis. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.