Mad World

To tell you the truth, I was writing another post with a Pro/Con list for Duke and UC Berkeley. But then I broke down and couldn't write it anymore.

You may recall that I was initially very excited about Duke. That excitement very quickly frittered away when I realized that my father was very against Duke and wanted me to go to Cal. I was suddenly faced with the realization that our family cannot afford 200k to send me through four years of Duke, not to mention the fact that my father feels the only thing Duke is good for is basketball.

My mother, on the other hand, has been very supportive. She understands why I prefer Duke to Cal, and she has been collecting a lot of advice and information from family and friends these past few weeks. However, this afternoon she came into my room to tell me about an acquaintance of ours whose daughter did pre-med at Cal and is going to UC Davis for med school. Perhaps she didn't mean it to come off that way, but I interpreted it as her way of hinting that my argument that Duke is better for pre-meds has been effectively shot down.

She also keeps stressing that I need to have a conversation with my father. I am reluctant to do so on many different levels. (I keep telling myself that I can put this off until after I visit Duke next week.) My relationship with my father is minimal -- if we lived in The Sims, our relationship bar would be in the lukewarm 30s. I don't know how to talk to him, and I don't know what to say. His mind seems to have already been set in concrete -- not once has he indicated any interest in Duke. My mother is the one looking up Duke on Wikipedia and calling up old friends whose children attend Duke. I have never seen my father do anything even close to that.

All of the logical, practical arguments make sense. Cal is cheaper, and so the money that would have been spent at Duke could be used for graduate or medical school. Why spend 200k on the undergraduate university, when I intend to go to graduate or medical school in the future?

At this point, I am trying to convince myself to go to Cal. I don't want to burden my parents with 50k a year on top of the possibility of med school tuition. I don't want to fight with my father.

But at the same time, Cal is not what I have been dreaming of. Ever since I entered high school, I dreamed of getting out of this valley. Our family rarely travels -- I have only been to two other countries other than the United States, and plus, I cannot say I really visited the United States either. Other than good old California, I have merely driven through Oregon and Washington on the way to Canada, was born in Illinois (thus possessing absolutely no recollection of the place), and visited Hawaii when I was two (likewise). I have a severe case of wanderlust that cannot thrive in these economic times.

When I was writing my lists, it dawned on me that if it weren't for money, I wouldn't even be thinking twice (unless my father was STILL insistent on Cal). To be fair, I have not visited Duke yet, so for all I know, I may end up absolutely hating the place. But many times, I've wondered -- if I had gotten into Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, would I even be having this dilemna? Then again, if I had gotten into HYP, would I be pressured to go just because they're HYP?

This is one of those days when life feels so empty. Why is everything driven by money? We live and die for pieces of inked paper that represent gold that our country doesn't even possess. I've been born, bred, and raised to live in this system, and I can't even see what's the point. Is the point to be the most successful in the system -- the billionaire CEO or the world-famous lawyer? Or to transcend the system, whether through pure science or art? This world is mad, and we aren't any better.