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9:30 p.m. - September 23, 2001 So, WHY THE HELL AM I APPLYING TO COLLEGE TO MAJOR IN MUSIC THEORY/COMPOSITION??? Because that's what feels good to me. Because when I sit down at my keyboard and pound out something good, I get a rush that is incomparable. When somebody applauds for me, I feel like a million dollars. I invented drumbeats to the clicks of the MRI when I hurt my neck. I play piano on my desk in school. I finger the bassline along with songs when they come on the radio, instead of dancing, like everyone else. My co-workers ask me if their chord progressions are right. The music teachers ask me when they need an instrument spot filled. The only instrument I can't at least semi-play is clarinet. I find the ripple of euphoria in music. I want to do it forever. Because.. this is who I am. The application for the Conservatory makes me so angry. The spaces for the past four private teachers, the spaces to list the literature that's in my repertoire. The award section. I'm not going to make it like this, pitted against everyone who's been having a formal progression of education all their lives. There isn't any space for what I am; the impulsive, mostly self-taught self-described music hermit whose experience is mostly widespread and light. I can play most instruments well enough to make it into the top half of students in my high school, but not well enough to have a private teacher or win any awards. I only began writing my compositions down this summer, but they've always been there in my head and on the piano when I sat down there several times a week to play whatever flew into my head. There's no space for what I am. They don't want me, they want someone who has taken piano constantly, who can read music on-site, who has notebooks full of past compositions, awards on the walls, experience in the fucking school play. They don't want me. I'm not getting into Berklee, I'm not getting into Oberlin. They want things I can't give them. Passion isn't enough anymore. Does it matter that I want to learn everything I haven't already? No, they want people who've learned everything and are already brilliant geniuses. I'm sorry I'm not a brilliant genius. My friends and most of my class all know me as the musical one, the girl with multiple talents, but that doesn't count for anything, and I didn't even realize that until now. My hands have always been described as musical, the long knobby fingers, the flexible thumb and pinky. Maybe I should send a picture, as proof: Look, I have musical hands, see?? but.. it's the same as everything else, the child prodigy faded into the mainstream before sixth grade, the school pianist in elementary school taking third chair cello, seventh chair trumpet, finally quitting piano altogether. I wish I'd known sooner that if the pool is smaller, I would take up more room in it. I've hit the ocean without even realizing I was floating downstream. There's other fish in the sea is a statement not only referring to lovers, but to everything. There's fish who have better credentials than me. Fish who've won the John Doe Award For Musical fucking Excellence. I should claim hermit-hood, hide under a sheet, be the reclusive kind of genius, they always get attention. Why are you hiding, Miss Blanketyblank, why do you refuse interviews, why won't you do charity events and speak publicly and sign autographs and join mainstream Hollywood, Miss Blanketyblank? Well, you've got to get there first, be famous somehow. Every once in awhile there's a slit in the entertainment cover and an unknown breaks through, someone with no connections or even experience. Rarely. I shouldn't be implying that I'm an undiscovered genius. Don't sugarcoat it. Don't. No, I'm not. I'm not. Any kind of genius, I mean, undiscovered or otherwise. Having a passion for something, wanting it so bad you can taste it rolling in your mouth, says nothing about your actual talent. I can't judge myself. All I can say is that I love it. I love it. Should I say that to the admissions officers? They don't care. They want to know how many years I've studied. They want an audition tape. They want dedication. I can't give it to them. I wish I could. But I can't. If I end up in an office job, wearing long brown dresses and making coffee, I'll be like everyone else who didn't get what they were looking for. Well, so what? I thought people were what I loved. I thought music was what I loved. I thought I wanted philosophy, religion, psychology, interior design, painting, back all the way to education, dentistry even! four years old! and it changes, everything changes, and I can't help it if my mind won't concentrate on any one thing long enough to become good at it. I'm sorry that I don't have any fucking clue what I really want. I can't prostitute my so-called skills, my strengths, to you, so you can wonder whether you want my face at your college. I'm just too tired. I'm lazy. I'm not driven like modern-day-highschool America. I'm a spoiled brat. honesty. always honesty. I could thave done better, but I didn't. I could have kept up playing, I could have forced myself to compose, but I didn't. Instead, I talked about boys and sex and moshed at concerts and went to climbing class and wished I were road-tripping instead and did everything you. don't. care. about. Because it isn't prosaic and it isn't important. So I can't decribe myself to any college. I am not prosaic, I don't have morals, there are not any important lessons I've learned, my life has not changed, I care about stupid things. i like to sleep. Good-bye, and this is my incredibly RARE sixties fuck-the-establishment mentality, so I may as well play it out.. FFUUCCKK TTHHEE EESSTTAABBLLIISSHHMMEENNTT! And yes! In fact, I do have a fever! Of one hundred and two! Thank you for asking! Have a wonderful night. Love, the now Operatically Screeching Camel.
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