looking for a song to sing

Thing One: If you were a senior in high school and you had to sing a song dedicated your peers and teachers, what song would you pick? Rules that we invented:

1. No songs from musicals or rock operas or anything with a storyline. Songs out of context = the devil!
2. Something that can be accompanied by a live piano or guitar -- no tacky karaoke tracks (not appropriate for the venue).
3. Nothing that conveys overt hostility towards yours peers/teachers. "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day is OK, "Fuck You" by Lily Allen is not.
4. It's a relatively mellow event, so nothing too lively. "Dancing Queen" or "Tik Tok" are probably out of the question.

This survey is to benefit my younger sister, who has been hard-pressed to pick a song for Senior Solo Night, which is in a week. She had a relatively great high school experience, and so I think she really wants to pick a song that shows her appreciation for and warmth towards her friends and mentors. I gave her some good suggestions, most of which she nixed (I can't imagine WHY she wouldn't want to sing "I Shot The Sheriff") some of which she initially liked but then she couldn't find good enough sheet music. So I turn to you. Help me, internets. You're my only hope!

Thing Two: Unlike a lot of people, I basically loved high school. I found my niche early on (band geeks FTW) and stuck to it, and the social structure of my massive public school was too chaotic for a stifling clique-y heirarchy. Everyone basically left each other alone. I had my four best friends who accepted me for who I was (and still do!). I had teachers whom I respected and looked up to (and some I didn't of course). And there were a surprising amount of good looking guys when I was there, so had tons of eye candy to feast upon every. Single. Day. (Something you should know about me is that I was completely boy crazy for all four years of high school. If I wasn't lusting after a classmate, it was some celebrity or a guy I saw at a random Starbucks on my way to a flute lesson.)

Obviously I do look back and roll my eyes at a lot of things, cringe at my attitudes and actions, and sigh with relief that I don't have to wake up every morning at 6 and go be somewhere for seven hours, five days a week. I'm not trying to romanticize it. I think.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I'm glad high school is over, it wasn't exactly torture for me. And this whole thing with my sister's Senior Solo Night got me thinking about what I would have chosen to dedicate to my friends and mentors. I can't say for sure, but I like to think it would have been this:

I'm awake, you're still sleeping
The sun will rise like yesterday
Everything that we are now
Is everything we can't let go
Or its gone forever, far away
I hope tomorrow is like today
Don't you go away tomorrow
I don't think I could handle that
You're probably dreaming that you're flying on
Then you start to fall
But then you rise
and shine forever
Don't go away
I hope tomorrow is like today

Tell me what your experience was like! What song would you have chosen as your big fat farewell to high school? And you don't have to follow the rules I set above -- you can be as passive-aggressive (or just plain aggressive) as you please!

make my dreams come true

[First things first: Happy Cinco de Mayo! I am celebrating by cleaning my room, watching BBC's Life, and eating cookies. Later: Work! Olé!]

So here's what happened yesterday:

I got into graduate school.

I realize that I have never mentioned in this blog that I had any ambitions whatsoever to go to graduate school. So let me explain.

No, there is too much.

Let me sum up.

I want to be a librarian. More specifically, I want to be a youth services librarian. And I've been taking a lot of steps to achieve that goal. Many of those steps entailed getting as much hands-on experience as I can working in public libraries and school libraries. But the biggest step I took was applying to graduate school for my Master of Library and Information Science (or MLIS). Experience is important -- really important -- when it comes to getting hired as a librarian, but the MLIS is the golden ticket. It's basically the prerequisite for every library job beyond support staff.

I applied in December to just one school. In retrospect, that could have been a huge mistake, putting all of my eggs in one basket like that. And at first, it really seemed like I had fucked myself over majorly. Because the deadline for admissions decisions came and went, and I hadn't heard a thing back from my One and Only School. No acceptance. No rejection. Just dead silence.

I was convinced I'd overestimated myself. I started having tons of negative thoughts: How could I have been so stupid to just apply to one school and assume it was in the bag? This university is ranked #6 in the nation for overall library science -- #3 for youth services. They wouldn't want me, a fresh-from-undergrad wannabe whose GPA barely met the admissions standard, whose GRE scores sucked balls. 

Fed up, I turned to the Internet, and I found some forum where people who had applied to library school were discussing their school decisions. I found out that the people who'd applied to my program had already received their acceptances via email. It hit me like a train. I'd been snubbed. I hadn't even gotten a rejection letter.

I was so embarrassed. All of my fears about my shortcomings were true, apparently. I got really upset. Then I got mad. Then I started trying to figure out a Plan B.

This was all about a month and a half ago. Since then, I'd been struggling with where to go next. I half-heartedly filled out another application to another popular MLIS program whose deadline hadn't passed. I looked in vain for more support staff positions in public libraries. And I became more and more panicked about how my career was going to fall into place.

Then yesterday happened.

I was eating breakfast and watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch, waiting for my computer to start up and wondering how it is I never realized what a horrible show Sabrina the Teenage Witch was. I absentmindedly checked my personal e-mail, the address that I can't give out to employers because it's from when I was 15 and thought "liketotally" belonged in an e-mail address.

Then I logged out of that account and signed into my "offical" e-mail, the one I put on my resume and give to stores because I'm too embarrassed to give them the other one. I chomped down on a strawberry and bit my tongue and cried out in pain. Then, dabbing at the inside of my mouth, I glanced at my email and I saw it.

[Fancypants] University MLIS wait list - space available for you this fall

My jaw dropped. I blinked. I read the line over and over and over. I clicked on the subject line.

You are the next person on the wait list for the [Fancypants] University online MLIS program so we'd like to offer you the opportunity to begin your online studies this fall if you'd like.

My heart started pounding. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I'd been on the wait list the whole time? Why hadn't I gotten a letter or an email letting me know? Was this real? Or was it spam? Or maybe a cruel joke from the admissions department? I read on.

The new student orientation will be in late August at the [North Fancypants] campus ... Please let me know ASAP if you'd like to join the fall 2010 cohort so we can help you get registered and send you detailed information about orientation. Classes begin Wednesday, September 1st.

Oh my god. This was real. This was real and I was accepted. I am accepted.

I am going to graduate school, to attend one of the most high-ranking and well-known MLIS programs in the country. I am going to be a youth services librarian.

Of course, I ran around my house screaming and I called my mom and my dad and I frantically texted my sister and my best friends and Matt. Then I went to work and told my co-workers and they were so excited for me. I'm so excited for me. I mean, soon the boring stuff sets in: applying for a loan, registering for classes, learning to deal with bullshit university bureaucracy.

But today I'm not thinking about any of that. Today I'm just basking in the warm glow of Getting What You Wanted. Today, this is me: