So I've decided to update this thing again. Maybe I'll do it more often now, or maybe this is a one-time thing.
It's been a whirlwind of a year. Bouncing from place to place, attending weddings, trying to keep up with schoolwork- I feel like there's barely been a moment to breathe. But now, as this summer is settling out, I've realized something. Compared to last year, which was what I like to call highly structured chaos, this coming year is like a vacuum. Everything is up in the air and I don't know when it will come back down to earth and let me know what's going on.
It feels weird to not know where I'm going next. Not just my next vacation or volunteer trip, but in life. I guess it's finally sinking in because I've started applying to veterinary schools, and I honestly don't know what to expect. My plan in my head (which has been there as long as I can remember) is to attend Cornell Veterinary School. I think I'd like Ithaca, the culture there seems to mesh pretty well with my own personality and the winters can't be TOO bad, right? Right? Okay, let's face it I'll probably freeze there. But it's where I want to be, and so I'm willing to take that risk.
Recently, however, the possibility that I've always known has finally begun to sink in. What if I don't get in? Regardless of what friends and family say about my grades and my extracurricular activities, I know that there's a very real chance that I WON'T get in, because getting into veterinary school is hard. Like, really hard.
So if I don't end up there, where will I go? I'm applying to schools all over the place because well, if I'm not going where I originally wanted to, why not go somewhere crazy like London? Or Dublin? Or Australia? (My parents have their arguments against this, but have not been convincing enough to keep me from applying).
Of course, there are other American schools to which I'm applying. I could end up at the OSU in Columbus, Ohio with my cousin and her fiancé... er... well I guess he's actually her husband now. I'm still getting used to that. Or maybe I'll be in Philly, close to my friend Amber. Or perhaps Tufts, just 40 minutes from my brother in Boston.
Basically, all of this not-knowing is killing me. But not because I'm scared of any of the situations, except maybe the one where no one accepts me. But even then I could take a gap year or apply late to St. Georges. My problem is that ALL of these options are appealing to me in different ways, and I don't know how to choose. Having options is kind of terrifying. When I applied to undergraduate, I had already decided that I wanted to be at Stony Brook, and I was reasonably sure that they would accept me. I applied to two other schools to make my parents happy and to give myself an out in case I decided I had to leave Long Island, but really, the choice was made before I applied.
I wish Veterinary School could be like that. I wish that I didn't have to run through all of these back-up plans and just-in-case scenarios. Maybe all of this fretting is for naught, and I'll get into Cornell and that will be that. But I can't bank on that, and I won't know what's going to happen until spring semester next year. And that's what terrifies me.
This picture was taken on Long Island. But it could be anywhere.
