Academic Aplomb

I'm feeling appropriately gloomy in the last hours of this Good Friday.

It's been a tumultuous week for my family. My dad is having severe trouble with his heart, atrial fibrillation to be exact. An echocardiogram yesterday showed signs of heart failure. He'd been taking a medicine that sounded like Toblerone since Monday, which made him sick to the point of hallucinations.

I have to say, once he stopped taking it, and it finally wore off today, he looked and seemed lots better. He's not supposed to do, well, anything, which is driving him crazy. To some extent, I can identify with this.

My mom's the one who has to stand on top of him even though she doesn't want to because she knows how badly he wants to do something, anything. He can't even go mushroom hunting with my siblings tomorrow.

I have to hand it to my mom: she's really strong. This is her husband who's so sick. A man she met in college when she was my age, someone she's lived with and worked with and fought with for a long time. The worst part about the situation, she tells me, is that it's something she has no control over. I must be her daughter, or something, because to me that rings so true.

For now, and for awhile, she'll have me.

Also yesterday was my brother's 15th birthday, which we celebrated tonight because my sister was home. We two girls were sent on a shopping mission, and we got all the way home before realizing we'd left a bag at the checkout. Whoops!

It's better with my sister here. While we see her considerably more these days than we did when she lived (and will live, this summer) in Washington, D.C. it's hardly every weekend. So when she comes, it's a change of pace that lifts everybody's spirits. Sounds corny, but it's true.

Every day I walk at least 2 miles around my yard. It's a bit of time just for me with only my iPod and my thoughts for company. I often tell my mom that I get my best ideas when I'm walking around and around (5 laps around my house and my neighboring grandparents' make a mile) I still haven't managed to come up with an answer to my current quandary that's still the least of my worries.

Back when I was exploring College C, I met with a music professor (not Dr. Scholarship!) She was very friendly and gave me helpful advice about majoring in music. It wasn't something that was on my horizon of consideration at the time, but it is now. In fact, pending an advising appointment, I'm pretty sure I want to add Music Ed as a major. But back then, I told her that I was still waiting to hear from College B, and she requested that I keep her in the loop.

So last weekend, I shot her an email telling her of my College D plans and my potential major add. Imagine my surprise to open an email from her colleague, the professor in Schola who offered me a scholarship! A remarkable correspondence for the middle of the weekend, if you ask me. He was delighted to see that I would be studying music after all. In retrospect, the way he phrased things led me to believe he was under the impression that I was changing my major instead of potentially adding one. And I hadn't told him in the first place, mind you.

This week at Schola rehearsal, both he and the music director's wife were pushing College C. After all, if I went there, I could still be in Schola! The only problem is, I don't want to go to College C. It's located in a highly un-happening town. The recent blaze that decimated a downtown church was the most exciting event in a long time, according to my sister, and I believe it. Most importantly, of course, it doesn't have my major. This professor is awfully determined about it, and when I said that to him, his reply was to assert that I've got a backbone as well.

Yeah.

If I did, I'd have found the gumption to tell him by now that I don't wanna go! How to do so politely?

There's one for Peggy Post.