If you know me personally then you know that I graduated from Carnegie Mellon last May. I’ve written about it a bunch of times (click the tag down there on the right that says “Carnegie Mellon” and you’ll see what I mean) and naturally it’s responsible in a large way for who I am. I was thinking earlier today about how unusual CMU is; it’s really a unique place. People say that about Carnegie Mellon all of the time — students, administrators, professors, alumni — but it’s true. CMU is unusual. This goes beyond Buggy and Carnival and the traditions that make Carnegie Mellon an unusual place; it’s the people who make it fascinating and different from any other experience I’ve ever had or likely will ever have.

The main reason CMU is unusual is because every student — and the faculty and oddly a large portion of the staff — are all passionately obsessed about something. Typically these people, being in a research university environment, tend to study that something either as their main course of study or as a minor or in a single class or in some capacity — in something intramural, extracurricular, something. Sometimes those obsessions run completely parallel or perpindicular to what people actually study; you find all sorts of types playing CMU’s Varsity sports teams and even more sorts playing everything else. Even more interesting are the humanities or art people who are obsessed with video games or Star Trek; the psychology majors who are entranced by metaphysical principles, the computer programmers or future doctors who love to write or paint or build wooden structures in the shapes of crazy things like Death Stars. CMU is full of people who defy the stereotypes of every conceivable major — they even defy the stereotypes of college students, period. CMU lets you be a professional, amateur, or wanna-be nerd — in a good way. Randy Pausch is just one of the most famous examples of incredibly talented people who just happen to be fanatically obsessed about a lot of different things but through the medium of Carnegie Mellon find a way to put everything together (or heck, keep them separate) and be completely themselves in the process. Being at Carnegie Mellon enabled me to be consistently surrounded by people who fascinated, challenged, intrigued, or generally surprised me in every way possible.

When I was accepted to CMU in March of 2003 for the Fall 2003 class, I was accepted into the Science and Humanities Scholars program — called SHS — because I had cited on my application my interest in (first) Biology, (second) English, and (third) History.

(In actuality, I had cited these three in that order because of several reasons, all of which I feel completely guiltless about divulging now that I have my B.A.: first biology because at the time of applications in Fall 2002 I had already gotten a 5 (out of 5) on that AP exam and done really well on the biology regents and all of my grades demonstrated a mastery of science in general but especially biology; second, I thought I’d have a better chance of getting into college if I went with science as my primary subject of study while really knowing that I wanted to pursue English and writing as the ultimate goal. I put history because I had gotten a 5 on the AP US History exam and I was good at it; I’ve always had that Jeopardy brain for remembering that the French Revolution was in 1789, the British abolished slavery in 1799, the Louisiana Purchase was 1803… etc. I was good at it. And for me, psychologically, I needed to put my best foot forward with my applications because getting admitted was the most important factor — I could always change majors later on. By the way, to a high school student, “majoring” definitely seems a foreign concept — how many people (1) know what they want to do with their life or (2) like any one subject enough to want to commit more years of study to that subject? I only had a career path — novelist — but no definite plan of how to get there. Admittedly I somewhat got around that by applying to colleges that had creative writing programs, majors, or minors but that was all secondary — I figured I could always switch over to CW later on.)

So when I was accepted to Carnegie Mellon’s SHS program I felt a little odd; the wording of the acceptance praised my academic prowess in subjects all across the academic spectrum — I’d imagined them reading my application and saying, “Good in math, science, English, history, and SHE EVEN PLAYS SPORTS (three at the time) — what more of an eclectic person could we want?!” — and felt a little odd about that. Like, my master scheme of getting into college by putting my academic foot first… worked? Wow. That feels weird. (Not to mention that it hadn’t worked at several colleges — I am an Ivy League reject and proud of it, all these years later.) I was especially weirded out by the fact that I was accepted into such a selective program because I’d done it without really anyone’s strategic input. I’d never sat down with anyone and said, “Here is my grand collegiate scheme! What do you think?” and gotten a response. I simply walked up to my parents, my teachers, my guidance counselor (ha; more on my high school’s system at another time) and said, “This is where I am applying. I need you to fill out this form for me. [Smile.] Thank you.” [Walk away.]

Admittedly, I was a pretentious little twit during my senior year and I was seriously desperate — desperate – to get the hell out so I wasn’t very nice to people. (I held the belief that I’d rather be rude, pretentious, or arrogant than pretend emotions I don’t legitimately feel because I didn’t want to be “fake.” I’ve since learned that pretending emotions you don’t generally feel in certain situations is called “tact.” I have also since learned that being able to preserve a certain self-image or someone else’s emotional frame of mind by being tactful in certain situations can be a very crucial skill to possess.)

But back to getting into CMU — I hadn’t been totally decided on CMU publicly until sometime in late April but I was mentally set on it the moment I opened the acceptance envelope. I felt so warm – never mind that it was my first major college acceptance — I was ready to sign the paperwork immediately. But for everyone’s sake (including the sake of the little doubting voice in my head more concerned with my happiness than the fact that Pittsburgh was 400 miles from home) I decided to actually visit Carnegie Mellon. I’d applied without having visited — my parents had only been keen to take me to the big places and the ones within easy distance and I hadn’t been keen on going to anywhere less than an Ivy for a long, long while (remember that I was a pretentious twit?) so I’d never bothered going to visit CMU before my acceptance. But they had this funny thing called a “Sleeping Bag Weekend” that would occur in early April from Sunday to Monday where I’d get a chance to sleep over with a current student and actually visit the campus sans-parentals and I was there. By April of my senior year I was so mentally messed up by the driving, almost depressing desperation I had to rush me to August 2003 that I nearly cried with relief at the thought of actually going to college like a real college student, even for only a day.

I took the abominably long Greyhound trip to Pittsburgh — was it 7, 9, 11 hours? Who really knows anymore? And when I got there it was cold and going to rain. Brilliantly I hadn’t checked Pittsburgh’s forecast before leaving and I’d packed for New York appropriate spring weather. At the time — and for about 6 months afterward — I was convinced Pittsburgh was in the US’s midwest. They have since educated me that Pittsburgh is the gateway to the midwest but sure as hell clings to its north-eastern pretend status. (Additionally, regarding the weather, native Pittsburghers will brag that Pittsburgh has fewer sunny days / more cloudy days than some places in the Pacific Northwest like Seattle or Tacoma but I haven’t found the statistics to back that up — despite agreeing with them that statistically that has to be true given my own experiences, ha ha.) So my first view of the campus was under thick gray cloud cover. It didn’t start to rain until Monday. The grass was so green despite the clouds — the Cut, the large grassy space dividing the main area of campus was just brilliantly, inconceivably green — and I was stunned that people were walking around with umbrellas swinging from backpacks and having a grand old time. The people I met that day and the next were so smart, but not in a very conscious way. They all seemed to know a lot and were intensely, crazily giddy about their passions — including Carnival and Buggy, which I got a taste of — but they weren’t pretentious. It was amazing to find such proud… well, nerds. I had no word for someone proud to be brilliantly well-informed about really specific subjects but nerd. But that was me, too — me, exactly.

I’d go into profuse detail about my freshman year but that’s another story. This whole story will probably find its way into either a semi-fictitious account or a memoir — though I have a rule I’ve imposed about memoirs: I’m only going to write them or at least publish them only when certain unspeakable-in-a-blog conditions are met. They haven’t been yet met.

Basically the whole reason for this CMU period of reminiscing is because it’s been about 7 months since graduation and all of my December graduate friends are graduating and I feel both way too old and way too young at the same time. Damn it. Though admittedly having Bryan at this stage in my life prevents the romantic me from falling into the senioritis depression of high school but sometimes I feel like I’m getting there. I have these bursts of lack-of-productivity-shame that remind me of being in high school senior year… I’m so close to doing what I want to be doing but I can’t get myself there. The only problem at this point is my own willpower is the only thing stopping me. Not my age, no the natural progression of things like time and high school and whatnot. I am 22. My life is not over. But I know that so I keep dawdling. I need deadlines, I need timelines. Bryan and I need to work on developing those. In the meanwhile I need to find a way to be frickin’ productive without it being (a) dark outside and (b) it being the last moment. As I always say to you religious readers, I will be more productive. Sigh. The thing about being a judgmental procrastinating perfectionist is your best, your most productive, is never probably as good or as productive as you will ever want.

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