It's a Switch Flipped

I didn't post yesterday. I was spending roughly 10-11 glorious hours (continuously... this count started at 11, you'll see why later) at the high school auditorium, working lights/stage management of the Crafton talent show. It's a crazy process. I was there until 10:30 PM (EST), so I didn't get around to blogging. Sorry.

My Friday began (as most Fridays do) reading the morning announcements. Afterward, we went to the cafeteria (after my Pre-Calc teacher told me I shouldn't be in class, that I should leave, and more importantly leave his room alone) to prep for the Pittsburgh National College Fair held at the convention center downtown.

After riding a bus, going up some stairs, and through some doors I was immersed in roughly 400 booths full of colleges, universities, vo-tech reps, and assorted insanity. Well, sort of.

On paper, there were 400 booths. Alex really was interested in four*: Point Park, RIT, Syracuse, and St. John's (Queens, NY). But neither St. John's nor Syracuse were present; the reps apparently decided to not show up. So with roughly an hour and a half to kill, I spoke with Point Park about admissions, and RIT about stuff I didn't learn in the mail. And then I wandered about. 

What I learned is this: the colleges that send stuff in the mail are irrelevant. What I've found most useful is to seek out who has programs I am interested in, and who is relatively local, and seek those institutions. This led me to talk with George Mason and Ohio University. Just another adventure.

So back to the talent show. It went quite well, and we had a chance to test out the "Welcome" announcement I recorded on Monday. It's a pretty generic thing I wrote to be played to give me time to dim the house lights at events:

Welcome to the Carlynton Junior-Senior High School Auditorium. We ask that you please silence all devices at this time. Thank you and Enjoy the Show!

I had my brother (who was on master sound yesterday) play it like ten times for me before anyone showed up. I am such a nerd. But seriously, isn't it cool to be able to say that this is your recorded voice, played before [now pretty much all of the] events [I highly doubt musical will use ours; they record their own]? Just me? Okay.

Either way, the talent show went pretty well considering we had no real run-through and I lost control of the light board twice during the show. It's a lot of set-up, and a lot of cleanup, but at the end it is so worth it. And again I am so thankful to be at a small enough school where I can do auditorium things as often as I do.

*I narrowed my list down to those four colleges using the College Board's BigFuture tool. I doubt that St. John's is real, though. And RIT is the only one that gave me MAJOR sticker shock**

**I consciously realize that deciding (or rather society/academia/the job market deciding for me) to go to college is going to lead to me being in debt for the rest my natural life. If that doesn't do it ($30-$40K USD PER YEAR?!?!?) something else will. I accept that debt will be there, but I am trying to draw a line at nothing above total Cost of Attendance (getting there, tuition, room, board, etc.) at $50K per year. RIT has a Tuition + Room + Board rate of roughly $42,000 dollars (or so the admissions guy told me, per College Board it actually looks like $47,677). Compare with Point Park's program's rough COA around $38,600 (Per College Board). I don't think I can justify that. This whole college/money/what to do with my life thing is quite terrifying, which is why I generally don't blog about it.