An Asymmetric Game

It’s Saturday morning now and I’m sitting under a few blankets because it’s god-awful cold. I’ve done only a few things the last few days but always thinking about the school situation.

The school that accepted me is not my first choice. The rejecter was, more or less, my first choice. The one I haven’t heard back from yet–they’re the best school I applied too. At least the rejection makes the choice of where to go easy. The remaining schools form a clear hierarchy in my thinking.

I am joyed that I will (unless something unexpected happens) be a graduate student next year. My reservations of going have been buried and, right or wrong, I’ve convinced myself that it’s better long-term than the alternative. Yeah, but if I got into this other school, I’d be simply ebullient. I may not go there–it’ll depend a lot on money–but the ego-trip of being accepted by a school of that quality would be…well, great.

So, yes, I no longer have to preface my comments regarding the future with "If I get into grad school…" or "If I don’t get into grad school…" Now I’m starting with "If I go to X school…" or "If I get into Y school…" The lack of information is still frustrating. It’s like working on a problem and figuring out how it got screwed up but not knowing why. It’s something, but not completely satisfying.

One of the reservations I have about the school that has already accepted me is the town it’s in. I’ve never been there, but those I know who have don’t have great opinions. Which is fine. All I really need is a few good bars, a good record store, and a (relatively) cheap standard of living. I’m told that they have that. I should be spending most of my time reading anyway.

But yeah. It may not matter, but with my control issues, I just really want to start making plans and figuring out how I’m going to get all my shit to this new town. And I can’t do that until I know which new town I’m moving to.