March 18th, 2005
decision-making time
With Mr. Angst’s good news of yesterday, we are in exactly the position I feared we’d be in: we are both accepted to schools in both of our target cities. And now we have to decide where to move.
Part of me had been hoping all along that the decision would be made for us by some admissions committee somewhere. It certainly would make things easier if that had been the case. Instead, though, we have to be grownups and choose between our options ourselves.
So we’re composing lists of pros and cons. Which I do a lot of, but hate. In this case, I particularly dislike the pro-con method of decision making, because my pros and cons are so very even for both locations. Essentially, I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I would love to go law school in that cold, windy city. But I don’t want to go if it means I’d never see my husband, who would be in class at night. I know he would love to be a student in our nation’s capital, but I am still ambivalent about the law school I’d be going to there. If only we could fold time and space and put the two cities together. The best of both worlds!
I feel like I’ve been trying to prepare for this moment for weeks now, only to realize that I’m not prepared at all! I feel completely adrift. What do I want? What does Mr. Angst want? Where will we be happy? Where will we be successful? Who makes the bigger sacrifice?
Expect more of this kind of musing in the days to come.
comments
I understand. I felt called to the city I visited yesterday, and I keep thinking about pros and cons. I think I’ve completely decided against one of the school’s I’m waiting on, and I sort of hope not to get in the other because then I would have to make a decision. I love where I live, but think the school in that other city has what I’m looking for. There are lots of criteria, and a clear winner for each, but it’s a matter of deciding which critera are most important. Good luck.
FYI- that one city is COLD. Very cold. It’s a great city I’ve traveled to a number of times, but it’s the coldest place I’ve ever been in my life.
Oh, stag, you wuss. It’s not *that* cold here!
For what it’s worth, both cities are great and charming in their own way. My advice: make the decision based on the school/program. You don’t have to live in either city forever, but if you’re in a program that you don’t like, it sure will feel like forever.
Call me a wuss, but I’m sitting in the sunshine and on the beach right now. That city is the only place I’ve ever seen one of those outside temperature signs that had a negative sign in the temperature. And I remember standing on that Avenue, you know the one with the wind, and I was trying to catch a cab and stuff was literally flying out of my nose and down the Avenue. It was horrible. For me, cold is BAD.
I also think that city is cold (and windy, and I actually hate wind even more than cold), but hell, I’m in Ann Arbor, MICHIGAN for god’s sake.
Good luck in your choice. Personally, I’d go to D.C. (not only because of the cold (it gets cold there, too) but just because of some of the negative things I’ve heard about that other school that wouldn’t jive well with *my* personality).
Well, Denise is prejudiced because she goes to the Most Beautiful Law School In The World.
Come to the Windy City and commiserate with me - boy do I feel your pain! And remember, when you’re making your decision, that for the first year of law school you’ll probably not see Mr. Angst anyway. Or so I’ve heard.