Well, I just got back from a college financial aid presentation and interview. The presentation was scary: bright yellow (non-antialiased) text on a medium blue background, all read aloud by an old man with a grey ponytail. If I were to judge by his looks, I'd say he looked like a conman from the movies. Eek.

That was the worst part. Next comes the interview. My "counselor" was a 50-60 year old Luisiana man, a bit outgoing, which made me a little more comfortable. Basically, I filled out some information about myself, he gave me and Mom information on financial aid, etc. Apparently, they can get up to and over two-thirds of your college tuition paid for you as gift or merit aid (i.e. you don't have to pay it back) with this program. Okay, fine, sounds great to me. Mom's falling for it.

Then comes the part where they tell you what you have to pay. $99 down payment, plus $99/month for twelve months. That's pretty much $1300 just to get a "profile" of me sent to colleges. Well, according to them, they send it to colleges that have the majors *I* want and that those colleges hold them in high regards, so when they see that this company sent me, I'm pretty much in if I want to be.

Well, I sure hope all this is true, because Mom's dishing it out. Hey, if I can get into a $30,000 per year college (times four or more years) for $1300 now- with less than $1000 a year paid by my mother- I figure it's worth it. If it's all a hoax, there goes money that could have bought me a new Gateway. Oooh well.

On another, still related side, I'm only a freshman and this is the second offer for college financial aid I've recieved in the past month. I hope that's a good thing, but it's confusing the heck out of me. I'm not even quite sure of what I want to major in. I know I have it narrowed down to, oh, about ten choices- including web design, journalism, editing, anything to do with art or music, or something to do with cats (vet's assistant?)- but I'm still not sure. I have no idea which college I really *like,* either. I don't even know what to LOOK for in a college.

I still have three years to decide, supposedly. Pah. I have next year to try to figure out what I want, then I spend my junior and senior years trying to figure out how to get what I want. It seems that all highschool is is prep for college. If you don't take college, you're out of luck, or so the big, cruel world tells us poor little lowerclassmen in high school.

It's just so *confusing* to me. There's so much pressure on every side- I have to be thinking of all this stuff while still maintaining good grades and still maintaining a *LIFE.* Oh, yeah, I forgot about that! According to school officials, school should BE your life. Then they turn around and tell you in a whiny voice to "enjoy your younger years, because you'll wish you could go back later."

It's enough to drive me insane. I know I don't have enough wisdom to make my own competent decisions without totally messing up, but I can't listen to all the adults out there. Some of the advice is all just beeswax to me. Won't help me at all. The problem is, I don't have the discernment to figure out which advice I should follow and which advice I should ignore.

Yyyyeeaaaaaargh.