A confession.

My college decision rested upon purely cosmetic and thoroughly inconsequential elements. Don't get me wrong--I think I ended up at the right place-- I've received a fantastic education and I consider my subsequent experiences to be beyond value-- but listen to this:

I initially ruled XXXXXXX out because I thought it was too expensive. And then some friends told me that the campus had lots of trees, and that I would probably love it at XXXXXXX. I kept this in my heart.

After I ruled it out again, around December, I called the college to tell them to take me off their mailing list. But the admissions counselor off-handedly mentioned how the campus looked like a big frosted cup cake under all of the snow. This impacted me strangely, and I kept the image in my heart.

When I decided to go to XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX University, I visited the campus for a visitation day. They were giving bus tours, but the idea of blurring past all of the buildings and secret nooks that I might be spending the greater portion of the next 4 years of my life--did not sound appealing to me. So an old friend who was attending the University gave me a walking tour. She told me all about this tunnel that ran under the campus where countless rapes took place. Tunnel was sealed off, but it was still possible to get into. The idea of repeated atrocities previously occurring in the location just below my walking path freaked me out; and I kept this in my heart.

XXXXXXX was back on my list. It was between XXXXXXX and a really really small college called XXXXX, for which I was eligible for a full ride. Unfortunately, the scholarship competitions for XXXXXXX and XXXXX were on the same day, and through some convoluted mathematical process, I figured my chances of winning a substantial amount of dough from either college were about equal. Slim, but equal. And therein was my dilemma. Which scholarship competition should I attend? I had no idea what I wanted to major in, so the programs didn't matter all that much. My decision rested in a factor I invested an absurd amount of meaning in, which impacted the subsequent four years of my life, which in turn, butterfly affected the rest of my entire life. A friend suggested that I consider the mascots. It turns out, it was a moment in my life in which I had to decide between being a "Red Devil" or a "Saint." I took it as a sign from God, and I am proud to say that today, I am a Saint.

Today I give tours for XXXXXXX, and I make up a bunch of crap about how I considered the size and the faculty members in the departments I was interested in, when in reality, I totally stumbled my way to XXXXXXX blindly.