The first 2 college applications were sent off last night:  she had B, G and I holding her hands as she pressed submit.  I said a prayer in my head.  For what-I'm not exactly sure.  I want her to be where she'll be the happiest.  I don't know where that is.  I have to trust that it will be.  She will end up where she's meant to end up.  It's not as though I want her to go thousands of miles away-but I feel like for what she wants to do, and the opportunities that exist-that would be one of the DC schools.  Time will tell.  It's also crazy that we won't know until April.  That is a long time away.

When I applied to SMC I was in some sort of weird denial, panicky mode.  I was so paralyzed by the whole thing that my mother finally had to phone the counselor at MC so she could call me into the office.  I remember sitting in her office and handwriting out my application-which was all of 3 pages.  My GPA wasn't particularly good, my SAT scores were better (not math, but verbal) and so I had a National Merit commendation, and I had a few extracurriculars:  writing for the school paper, some volunteer work with autistic kids (that we had to do to graduate), a part time job.  I wrote out my essay while sitting in her office.  I'm a decent writer, so I'm sure it was fine.  And that was it.  Of course I got in-they didn't exactly have rigorous entrance requirements.  I applied to no other schools.  Not that I had seen any other schools other than UCSB as a kid-and I knew I didn't have the grades to get in there.  Plus it was so far away.  I used to feel annoyed with myself for not applying to other schools.  But really-without ever having been to any state schools-how could I possibly visualize myself going there?  And while I used to blame mom and dad for not taking me on campus tours other than for SMC-I don't know if ANYone's  parents did college visits.  I think a lot of people had older siblings or friends that went to various schools, and they thought that they sounded cool and that was it.  Obviously if you had the grades, you went to a UC.  I was in that weird mental state of wanting to get the hell out of my house, make something out of my life (exciting career, cute boyfriend-things that seemed out of reach at MC, which I loathed) and not wanting to leave the cocoon of my home.  I had absolutely no self confidence.  I could not imagine going someplace totally different and trying to figure it all out.  Now of course I realize that it's all baby steps.  You're at a college, and there's orientation and all kinds of things in place to help you figure it out.  But at that time it just seemed insurmountable.  And my total lack of social self confidence was even worse. I was incapable of going someplace new and trying to make friends-I felt "odd" and then acted "odd" and shy and awkward.  It seemed easier to go to SMC with Lisa, with the 40 other kids from MC (even if I wasn't particularly friends with them, at least they were familiar) and have that sense of security.