Beccaning Call

Before i forget

Old school:

Ms. Lauren Greenie, January 2003:

So...Chapel Hill. Yeah, it's nice, yeah, it's fun, yeah, it feels like a real school---college, even---but I probably won't transfer. Don't know why...too much of a hassle...??? Who knows? I sorta just wish I had gone here to begin with. Approximately 98% of my high school "posse" (as I've so fondly taken to calling them) wound up here. It's as though there's a pied piper of Myers Park High School that makes his annual trek across campus, leading unsuspecting IB students through that sky blue portal where they soon meet their inevitable fate as a tar-heel on the other side. That's just the way things work around here.

The other 2% of us must have had that nasty stomach virus the day the pied-piper came around and chose other schools. For a while we prided ourselves on the fact that we managed to avoid four years of face-painting and howling like a banshee over sporting events, a baby blue wardrobe, and of course, thousands upon thousands of beer-gutted, north-face clad frat boys.

Things that everyone else seemed to be so curiously drawn to. Not to mention the lifetime of fund-seeking alumni letters adorned with the infamous columned well (which is actually small and unimpressive met face to fountain) that will follow you no matter how many times you move, change your name, enter the witness protection agency--they will always find your mailbox.

We were the brave ones. The ones who dreamed of something different...something our own. Either that or we just didn't get in and you're hiding behind the "dare to be different" facade (The trap lies in the application. If you apply to Caroli! na, and you get in to Carolina, you Go to Carolina. You can't turn it down.)

And now, a year and a half into our college experiences, 98% of my beloved non-carolinian 2% are dropping like flies. If freshman year is any indication of the future, the "best four years of our lives" are fast becoming the "most mediocre four years of our lives." So what is everyone doing about it? TRANSFERRING. To where? CHAPEL HILL. I'm beginning to think that there really is no other place to be.

After 2 1/2 visits here and some somewhat-careful thought and consideration, I've realized that there is a reason the majority is the majority. There's a reason that every drunk concert go-er this side of the Mississippi shouts "FREEEEBIRRRD" at any show they go to. (Beyond intoxication and redneck tendencies) It's a fucking good song. And Chapel Hill is a fucking good school. It has everything. Academics, athletics, a gorgeous campus, Franklin street...there's an intelligence level among students high enough to be challenging, but brought down to a not-so-intimidating level by class discussions including phrases such as "more stupider" or invented words such as "ethicalness".

So what's stopping me? I don't know...perhaps I need to make a trip back to good ol' MP and ask the pied piper to show me the way.

posted by Becca @ 2:46 AM