Don't apply to oberlin plz
When I got home today the first thing I did was check my LJ. This turned out to be a terrible idea because it sent my mind into a complete tailspin. Apparently, after three days of living constantly in the moment, my brain needed to check out for a while and slip from my control. It didn't help that I had an anecdote/short story to write for tomorrow, and that I immediately set to work on that after reading my friends page. I got a few paragraphs into it and then stopped. And then read what I wrote. And then stopped. And then read what I wrote. Tonight is going to be a long night; that was three hours ago, and I haven't gotten any farther on anything.
But it's all okay, and you know why? I just had a great weekend.
THURSDAY
It started with a 5:45 AM plane to Phoenix on Thursday, a 4 hour flight to Cleveland after a 45 minute layover, and a 30 minute drive to Oberlin so that we arrived at the bed and breakfast by six. We unloaded our stuff and I immediately grabbed one of my bags and took off to meet my host at Wilder Hall, since I had to be there by six. Thursday was Yom Kippur, and a lot of the campus was fasting. My host, Alex Kramer, a spazzy 5'5'' jew party animal from NYC, took a break from services to meet me, and thenleft me to wander campus as he ducked back inside the synagogue. In the two hour interval I met Franny, a South grad who was working the Wilder Hall information desk. We talked about teachers, people we both knew (Erica?), and what classes I should take the next day. After checking out the library and trying in vain to get my wide-eyed prospie phase over with, I came back to Wilder and ended up watching The West Wing in some random room.
Once Alex got out we headed to his dorm. He's in Langston, or North, and he shares a quad with three other jewish freshmen: Sam, Dave, and Max. I met Sam that first trip to the room, and the first thing I saw him do was not know the name of his next door neighbor, Kelly. He'd been living next to her for a month, and she walks in with me and Alex and when Alex introduces me as his prospie, Sam looks up from his laptop and points at Kelly, "Oh, are you a prospie too?" Sam is a pretty chill guy. At this point Alex was starving, so we went to the kosher co-op to break his fast. I sat around the table with him and four other jews, Hannah, Robin, Ben, and Rafi, and took probably more than my share of the bagels, egg salad, squash, and noodle stuff. Alex treated everyone in the packed dining hall to some Rafi songs, a capella, probably inspired by that guy named Rafi sitting with us. It actually turns out that Rafi was supposed to be my host, but didn't think he could do it and passed me off to Alex.
The rest of Thursday night was more touring the campus, hanging in people's rooms, helping Grace move from the quiet dorm to the cool one, talking about Mysteries of Pittsburgh, getting interviewed for a paper on Death and the Art of Dying, trying to find Huntsberger and failing, and walking around with a guy named Ted who promised that we would get high together before he remembered that he had a midterm the next day. He did end up taking me through the back door of the East dorm's kitchen so that we could steal french bread and banana bread stuff at two in the morning, which I appreciated because it was only eleven for me and I was looking for something to do.
FRIDAY
But the next day. Alex woke me up at 9:40. He had a paper to write that was due at five and he hadn't started yet, even though he'd had weeks to do it, so he'd be unable to host me very well. That was cool; on the way back from trying to find my mom at the bed and breakfast to tell her I didn't want to meet with her at eleven, I ran into Huntsberger. He was in the middle of his acting class at Tappin square, and they were going over scenes from Henry V. I agreed to meet with him for lunch in Stevie, the main dining hall, and i went off to find my mom, who was in admissions, and had apparently set up an interview for me. That was at 1:15.
Despite the fact that I had at least three classes I wanted to go to at eleven, I sat around in the quad until twelve. I can't really remember what I did. Huntsberger was late for our lunch date, so after I filled my tray with too much sick shit I sat down next to some guys who were talking about starting, omfg, an underground newspaper. They left me and another guy came by who had switched majors three times. I left him when Hunts and his crew showed up. Unlike the quad I had been hanging with up to this point, Hunts and his buddies Nate, Justine, Mark, and Deacon almost always eat in Stevie, which i think is too bad since there are so many cool co-ops and cafes to hit up instead. But whatever. I was introduced to Nate and Justine at the table, and when we got back to their end of North dorm i was eventually introduced to Mark and Deacon too, as well as Jane and Olivia, some twins. This group of people, although also freshmen, seemed to have their shit a little more together than the other crew I had been with did. They were a little more cautious, probably more studious, and just as fun to hang out with. I ended up talking with Hunts for a few good hours on Friday, in between my interview and class.
The interview was okay, and the class was great. French Cinematic Experiences, 2:30, Severance Hall. The movie they were studying was Diary of a Country Priest, and even though I hadn't seen it I followed everything they were saying at least pretty well. And it made me want to learn very badly. I left the class and didn't want to go to another one because it made me so happy, and I ended up wandering back to North and being in one of the best moods I've ever been in. And that was after one class. Think of if I actually went to school thee, and took a few classes a day. I would be such a happier person it would be amazing. Oberlin was amazing. Wow.
THE WISDOM TREE
So then Friday night. After watching Big Lebowski with them I ditched Hunts and co and met up with my host Alex, Dave, Sam, Max, and Max's girlfriend Clare. This was a while after dinner, and they were going to hit up The Wisdom Tree. This is a tree in the middle of campus that is a safety zone of sorts. If you circle up and pass a pipe under The Wisdom Tree, the student patrol can't get you. In fact, as we were sitting under the tree passing Clare's pipe, while Dave and Max chewed tobacco and I coughed my lungs out because I still had a cold, two people from student patrol were sitting on a bench forty yards away, facing us. Once we were decently high we went to a party at the Harkness co-op, the one my aunt lived in while she was at Oberlin in the eighties. I got in even though prospies weren't supposed to, and that was cool, but it was even cooler that I ran into Ted, who was decked out in some eyeliner and a dress and had somehow scored a 21 and over bracelet. So I got to drink. I danced to a funny ska band that did covers of Closer and What I Got, and Huntsberger showed up and we rocked out, and then he and I left and went to The Organ Pump in the chapel, where all the stoned and not stoned obie's gather once a month to hear some of the conservatory kids play scary organ music. The chapel lights were turned off, and it was the first time that I can remember loving organ music, after years of church going. At one point the lights came on and everyone sang Halloween carols, to which Hunts and Nathan made beautiful harmonies while I belted out the regular melody in my strong baritone. There was also an organ pun contest, which was less cool. The winning pun was: "I'd rather have lobsters on my piano than crabs on my organ." I laughed really hard even though I didn't get it at the time.
The Organ Pump let out at half past midnight, so Hunts and I returned to the dorm, looking for something to do. We found a group of students on the third floor reading poetry to eachother, so we chillaxed with them for a while. A while was actually three hours, and what I most vividly remember from it was Hunts slipping into major ham mode and doing the crucifixion dance. We got back to Hunts's quad and found Mark and Nathan fixing Mark's road bike. I fell asleep on the couch.
SATURDAY
I was kind of hazy most of Saturday. I tried to do work, failed, walked around with Hunts some more, walked around with my mom a lot, saw the football team suck, and listened to one of the bed and breakfast owners, an 6'5'' Oberlin grad from the sixties, talk about college football, the Chicago Seven, and other stuff that I didn't pay attention to. After saying by to people I turned in early, making my way to the bed and breakfast to sleep because I needed to get up at 4:30 the next morning to catch a plane.
CONCLUSION
I think I'm going to try as hard as I can to get into Oberlin because I absolutely loved it there. You shouldn't though. Go somewhere else for college, please.
My other conclusion is that, as I thought, college is much better than high school. Just way better.