(no subject)
I got into UCLA! Again!!!!
I got an email at about 6pm telling me I was admitted!
On February 4 I went to LA to visit UC Irvine and interview at UCLA. I liked Irvine. It was a good campus with excellent student housing options and quality facilities. I really respect UCI, and the people who work in admissions there are fantastic.
But I had a wonderful visit and interview at UCLA. I spent my first 2 years of undergrad there, and this was my first visit back to UCLA on my own terms. It was almost magical. I felt so happy there. I felt this energy around everything there... I remembered that energy, but I hadn't felt it for 8 years since I transferred. The place is dynamic. It's like there's lightning underground.
I drove up to westwood from the OC the night before my interview. Ate a sushi dinner and had a dollar ice cream cookie sandwich from didi reese's. Then I walked uphill to the campus tennis courts. Was it really almost eleven years ago when I first walked upon them? In the summer of 1995, I went to my UCLA freshmen orientation. It was entirely DISorienting. On my last night there, I freaked out completely. I thought I had made the wrong decision to go there. I thought I had made a terrible mistake. I walked alone to the tennis courts and had a good eighteen year old sob there, as all alone as I thought I would ever be. I was scared to death of the next four years.
Ten days ago, I sat at those tennis courts again. But I wasn't upset this time. I was thrilled. I felt overjoyed and blessed and lucky. I felt like I had made the right decision to go to UCLA back then. I felt like it could be the right place for me once again. I didn't feel afraid of the next few years. I felt excited. I felt anticipation and...just a vibrating graceful love for myself, for California, for Los Angeles, for Sarah.
The next day I visited campus and had a good interview, then drove to the airport in gridlock and flew home. It took me as long to get from UCLA to LAX at rush hour as the actual airtime of my flight to Oakland!
Los Angeles is an awesome city. I really mean that. It's awe-inspiring. It's scary. It's threatening. It's gorgeous. It's gargantuan. It's loving. It's graceful. It's comical. It's sexy. It's a dreamer's paradise. I was describing LA to my dad once, and I said "the L.A. Basin" is really the best term to use for it, because everything drains into Los Angeles. Everything in the world seems to flow into that city. All of the United States neuroses and genius sloshes around in LA. I said it was a city of dreams because it is what you make it. No other city is more susceptible to personal interpretation than LA. When I lived there, I didn't like many things about LA, but I really enjoyed most of my time there. Eighteen and on my own for the first time, discovering a world that I had always known as a summertime tourist as a new resident, and learning to deal with LA's complexities as I learned to deal with my own. I grew up in that city.
Anyway... I love LA. Of course I love the bay area more. But I would be very pleased to wind up at UCLA, and I just might.
I got an email at about 6pm telling me I was admitted!
On February 4 I went to LA to visit UC Irvine and interview at UCLA. I liked Irvine. It was a good campus with excellent student housing options and quality facilities. I really respect UCI, and the people who work in admissions there are fantastic.
But I had a wonderful visit and interview at UCLA. I spent my first 2 years of undergrad there, and this was my first visit back to UCLA on my own terms. It was almost magical. I felt so happy there. I felt this energy around everything there... I remembered that energy, but I hadn't felt it for 8 years since I transferred. The place is dynamic. It's like there's lightning underground.
I drove up to westwood from the OC the night before my interview. Ate a sushi dinner and had a dollar ice cream cookie sandwich from didi reese's. Then I walked uphill to the campus tennis courts. Was it really almost eleven years ago when I first walked upon them? In the summer of 1995, I went to my UCLA freshmen orientation. It was entirely DISorienting. On my last night there, I freaked out completely. I thought I had made the wrong decision to go there. I thought I had made a terrible mistake. I walked alone to the tennis courts and had a good eighteen year old sob there, as all alone as I thought I would ever be. I was scared to death of the next four years.
Ten days ago, I sat at those tennis courts again. But I wasn't upset this time. I was thrilled. I felt overjoyed and blessed and lucky. I felt like I had made the right decision to go to UCLA back then. I felt like it could be the right place for me once again. I didn't feel afraid of the next few years. I felt excited. I felt anticipation and...just a vibrating graceful love for myself, for California, for Los Angeles, for Sarah.
The next day I visited campus and had a good interview, then drove to the airport in gridlock and flew home. It took me as long to get from UCLA to LAX at rush hour as the actual airtime of my flight to Oakland!
Los Angeles is an awesome city. I really mean that. It's awe-inspiring. It's scary. It's threatening. It's gorgeous. It's gargantuan. It's loving. It's graceful. It's comical. It's sexy. It's a dreamer's paradise. I was describing LA to my dad once, and I said "the L.A. Basin" is really the best term to use for it, because everything drains into Los Angeles. Everything in the world seems to flow into that city. All of the United States neuroses and genius sloshes around in LA. I said it was a city of dreams because it is what you make it. No other city is more susceptible to personal interpretation than LA. When I lived there, I didn't like many things about LA, but I really enjoyed most of my time there. Eighteen and on my own for the first time, discovering a world that I had always known as a summertime tourist as a new resident, and learning to deal with LA's complexities as I learned to deal with my own. I grew up in that city.
Anyway... I love LA. Of course I love the bay area more. But I would be very pleased to wind up at UCLA, and I just might.