I’m being all mature about it and everything, but in my gut I still feel a little flip-flop and wince of pain when I see or read the word “Yale.” (I can reveal the truth, now that there can be no further threat of jinxing.) Having focused like a laser beam on my application package for their grad program for so long, it’s a little hard to let go of my daydreams of slaving away in their design studio, or working my way into Skull and Bones to procure incriminating Polaroids in case any future administrations need toppling.
There hasn’t been any actual wallowing since the first week, thankfully, because the soul-crushing possibility of being stuck in my current job for another year was too horrible to face without setting any emergency plans in motion. Emergency Plan A (formerly referred to as grad-school Plan C) is underway, after I hustled enough to ship one last application package overseas to a school I originally ruled out for being too impractically far away. While I wait to hear anything from there, I’ve set Emergency Plan B in motion, which involved making a case for my current job to transform into one that’s much less nerdy and much more art-directorial, since that would dig me out of this hole I’ve put myself in over the years. Emergency Plan C is not so much a plan as a vow to put up with a pay cut and find another job altogether next Fall, but that would be a rock-bottom last choice for a number of reasons (financial issues, career issues, school-application issue, blahbedy blah blah blah).
Going to school abroad would be nice, but hard. Being an art director (or something equivalent) where I work now would be nice, but hard. Hell, just knowing one way or another would be nice. With all that anxiety about the future freed up for a spell, I might even have time for fun once in a while.
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