[April, 1990] Acceptance

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April 5, 1990

Dear Journal,

The library thing worked out all right, but I have absolutely incredible news. I MADE IT INTO HUNTER!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM SO HAPPY AND EXITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Total number of words: 24

Total number of exclamation marks 29

This is possibly the only time my punctuation has outnumbered my actual text.

To be fair, I was the first student in the history of my elementary school to get into Hunter College High School. Even taking the entrance exam had been something of a production, so I got caught up in the big deal that my parents and teachers made of my acceptance. It took up so much of my attention that I put additional Mitch-related revenge plans on the back burner to take some time to bask in this achievement (though rest assured, more revenge would be attempted–and soon).

Life was about to hit a major crossroads for me and choosing what middle/high school to attend still remains one of the most significant choices I ever made. Going to Hunter would mean leaving all my friends behind, and leaving Brooklyn behind to attend school in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It would mean commuting two hours each way by private bus because my parents felt I was too young to take the subway. It would mean an academic course load unlike any I had up to that point and one even more rigorous than some of the classes I would end up taking in college. Saying yes to Hunter meant no longer being considered one of the brightest kids in my grade. It would mean being stuck with the same group of small people from 7th through 12th grade. It would mean a lot of other things I didn’t know to prepare myself for at the time, from loneliness to conformity to working myself to my wits’ end to hone my intelligence and sense of identity.

It would have been easy to say yes to Mark Twain and then Stuyvesant and have what would have undoubtedly been a more pleasant six years of my adolescent life.

Then again, I’ll never really know if it would have really been easier, because I said yes to Hunter, and in a few months my life would take a very dramatic turn.