The Real College Experience

Chapter 1

I did not expect to have this happening so suddenly. It seems foolish since I have been preparing myself over the years for this moment and yet I couldn't be more scared. It feels like all this time I spent wondering about what I would do was for nothing. If I look back on how I usually deal with the littliest things, it goes like this: overthinking and then throwing it all away.

It's been roughly two months since finals and we know what that means - college applications. Surely it isn't too much to ask of an eighteen year old what they want to do for the rest of their lives. It wouldn't be such a burden if tuition wasn't this expensive.
I had it all figured out, where I would apply to, the course I wanted, how I would manage my free time, how I would find this amazing part-time job. I think you know what's coming. It all vanished. I couldn't figure what the hell I wanted.

Starting this college process would require me sending the applications. I could send five of them and I had very little ideas of what to do. The first step to take was narrowing it down to the course I really wanted to study: law. I always had this imaginary course in mind in which I could study both law and psychology (I'm adding criminology to the feast), but I surely knew such thing didn't exist. The second step would be deciding the city I would move to. I kept asking myself "where do you want to go?". I got nothing. All I knew was I wanted to leave my hometown and clearly that wasn't enough. I had three cities I could go to, but I kept finding issues in every one of them. My favorite destination had all my family living in it, so that was definetely a no. My second best was too expensive to live in and to be honest, I wouldn't get in. All I had left was this so called "University City", people would say it was like living in another world. It may seem like a no brainer, but it was not like that, not at all. I'm not the party type of person so I wasn't charmed by the city's fame.

This is where Angie comes in. We were introduced by a mutual friend on an rpg game and it was a quite interesting story - I knew Angie was giving out free virtual pets and I really wanted one so I followed her and asked for it. She tried to play it cool, saying she had run out of coins so she wasn't able to buy me one. I was so sad, I actually thought I would get my first virtual pet, I really wanted a dog. I was even naming them after her - it may seem like an insult but I meant well, I promise! My long term memory isn't so good, - nor short to be totally honest - I'm not so sure how we developed this friendship of ours. Years went by, we kept on talking pretty much everyday. I will get into our relationship further on, do not worry! Long story short for now: I did not get the dog but I got her, that was better than a hundred dogs put together - I have to rethink this equation, not sure she's worth a hundred dogs.

Angie never fails to cheer me up, she always knows what and how to say it - I guess I didn't waste eight years of my life! She is one year younger than me, so she would apply to college one year later. We used to dream of moving in together - we actually dreamt of leaving the country. The logical thing (maybe not so logical) was to discuss where she wanted to go to college. If any of our plans actually met, we could sort it out and do it together as we always wanted. We had talked about this several times but it was never a permanent answer, we would only wonder what our futures would look like. Turns out none of our plans were in the same city. Ha, got you. We did have matching plans! We had two cities in mind - in which, one of them was the city I wasn't going to be accepted. That pretty much made my decision. Having my first college experience in the "University City"all by myself, to have Angie applying the next year. The perfect plan.