Ah, college life...

Yesterday my friend Morgan and I went to an open house at UMass Amherst. It was probably the best day we could have possibly picked to go because of the great weather - it must have been around 75° with a breeze, which is really warm considering we haven't had a day like this since before winter. Finally the weather is starting to match the season. Anyway, because it was so warm, the campus was crawling with students outside doing typical college activities such as tossing around frisbees or footballs and sunbathing on the grass. The whole thing was pretty much right out of a movie.

Anyway, when we first got there we had to go to the requisite opening ceremony/address/thing. There were booths situated around the perimeter of the room about the different majors, student organizations, or really anything else you would want to know about UMass. Morgan and I walked around the room and talked to a few of the students and faculty members that were behind the booths, but it was all about things that I had heard before. We were making our way to the chairs that my mom had saved for us when we were stopped by two plain-looking girls wearing ankle-length skirts. We spoke to them for a few minutes, and they were very friendly. As we walked away I looked at the pamphlet that they had given us, and I realized that they represented the religious organizations on campus. I promply got rid of the pamphlet as if it was coated with anthrax.

We eventually found our way back to our seats and waited for the opening ceremony to begin. There were, I think, three speakers and it lasted for about an hour. I had to struggle to stay awake the entire time. I have been to so many of these open houses that I am so utterly sick of hearing speeches by the college administration and faculty. It's always the same thing every time. Instead of paying attention to the speakers, I amused myself by looking around the room and counting the number of Hollister/Abercrombie clones I could see that were prospective students. Okay, so maybe I didn't actually keep count, but there sure was a helluva lot of them. It was kind of scary.

After the opening we went on a tour of the campus. It wasn't an entire tour since we only had an hour and the campus is so big that it would take a lot more than just an hour to tour the whole thing. It wasn't that special since I had already been on a tour last May so I'd seen everything our tour guide showed us. Like the opening speeches, I mostly just watched the students that were walking by us. There were millions of them. Well, more like 18,000, but close enough. I lost track of the number of attractive, dateable guys I saw, and it made me wonder if I really wanted to spend four years without boys at a women's college, even if it was in Boston.

We then returned to the campus center for a session about the Commonwealth College, which is basically a fancy name for the honors college. We had a little time to kill before it began, so we looked around the campus center for a while. There were more booths set up in this area, but instead they were for people selling things like jewellery and clothing and also for some student organizations. As we were walking past, we were stopped by two - yes, two, seperately - students asking us if we wanted to join the College Republicans. I politely smiled and said "no thanks," but inside I was laughing hysterically. Too bad I don't have the balls to laugh hysterically in their faces. Imagine, being stopped by religious folks and then republicans all in one day!

After shopping around for a few minutes, Morgan and I went back downstairs for the Commonwealth College presentation. I barely remember what the woman was talking about because I was dozing off the whole time. Finally when that was over we went to hang out with Morgan's boyfriend, TJ, at his dorm. I met a few of his friends, one of which Morgan decided to write a lovely message on the whiteboard on his dorm door that said, "Patricia wants your balls." Thanks, Morgan. I managed to wipe off part of my name, but the rest of the message remained, and it was quite simple to figure out who supposedly wanted his balls. Amusing, nonetheless; all in good fun.

Anyhow, we stood out on the balcony off of the common room with a bunch of people for a while. We just sat around (on the couch that they had carried out from the room onto the balcony) and laughed about random things. It was actually really cool; I kind of felt like a college student. I probably learned the most about UMass and college in general in that hour of hanging out with TJ and his friends than from all of those stupid speeches and seminars at college open houses.

Overall I really enjoyed it, and I ended up leaving with a much better impression of UMass than I had before. In fact, I actually really like it now... which I didn't expect at all. As far as my college decision process goes, I've pretty much ruled out Mount Holyoke and Smith because, although I would love to go to either of those schools, they're much too expensive. Now it's come down to Simmons and Boston. So, to help me decide, I created the graph below. I assigned points to the two schools in each category (with a maximum of 10 points per category).

	Simmons	UMass
Location	10	0
Boys	0	10
Education	10	5
Money	0	10
Total	20	25

Well, according to this graph, I would be better off attending UMass. But it's only a five point difference, and... I don't know, I really can't decide. I'm pretty sure it's all going to come down to money, and if that's the case, it will be UMass. I've actually expected to end up at UMass for a long time, it's just that now I'm more okay with it. Plus, Morgan has apparently decided that she's going there, so it would be really cool to go to college with a really good friend of mine. I just really, really want to be in Boston. That's basically what's keeping from finally deciding on UMass.

Anyway, I think that's about all for today. If I were witty, I would write something amusing about April Fool's Day... but I'm not, so I'll have to leave you with a simple "adios."