visiting college

We left late yesterday morning and walked to the train.
It was brisk and clear when we bought Peanut M&M's for brunch and boarded the 12:10.
I had asked Middle if we would be bringing iPods and although he said yes we had a few minutes before the train pulled out to chat.

He looked up from his seat at 12:05 and had a little start because he thought this guy



was staring at him. I reassured him that it was just Eurolush's husband and he calmed down.

Then this ad caught his eye -



Oh look! He said quietly, ten or five dollars off. It might be ten, but it's probably only five, and by the time you pay the tax you'll really be paying the full price. But it might be ten! Read the fine print cause you never know. But with your luck it WILL be five. And there's the tax. And probably a fee...do you really want to do this? Because it's not cheap.
And, with that, which doubled me over (I was nervous), he slipped his earpodthings in and settled back for the ride.



I, of course, took longer to settle in.
I gave our tickets to the conductor.
I unwound my earphones.
I did some of the crossword puzzle.
But I was fidgety.

I spotted this passenger, wearing sequins and gold embellished flats



and was going to say that I thought it was a little early in the day for sequins, but then I saw that she was reading one of those electronic book things and decided that she was kind of groovy.



Middle continued to relax.
Gah. He is always so relaxed. HOW DOES HE DO THAT?
I listened to my music and read the paper....

We arrived at the station and walked for a while to our destination.



I thought this woman was worthy of a photo but in profile we miss her accessories.
She had a large rhinestone brooch in her hair and her jacket was silver satin-ish material.
Middle has long legs and walks quickly. It was all I could do to keep up and it was crowded. We dodged and weaved through several packs of tourists and were too early to go into the school.
He decided he was hungry so we stopped in a Starbucks.
It seemed to me to be a solitary outpost kind of Starbucks. You know how all Starbucks stores look the same? How the signage and set up are all uniform? Well, this one wasn't. It was kind of wonky inside - a funny little store, packed with interesting people. Not interesting neighborhoody people, but people like the ones in the Men In Black movies - people who are really aliens in human disguises. One guy was in scrubs and had a strange team jacket on and an odd expression. The lady at the table next to us was working on a laptop and listening to her iPod but she looked like she was DISGUISED as a lady with a laptop.



Good shoes. In Starbucks.

Outside, the air was full of blossoms blowing in the wind. I tried to get a picture of the blossom snow but it was impossible...



We still had time when I spied a good thrift shop. We decided to step in.
Middle took some pictures -

He was very fond of this chair -





and $14sqinklyingish is not a bad price for such a chair.



Very Middle.



Huge, heavy and cheap. Middle was impressed with my knowledge of midcentury IBM typewriters. Remind me to teach him about carbon paper.



We admired this too - $75. Is that a good price for a cash register, mom? Apparently I had given him a false impression of my machine knowledge by boasting about the typewriter.





I think these should be hung together in someone's home. Not mine. But someone's.



Odd boy that he is, Middle really liked the floor of the shop.
Note that he is wearing his prom Cons. You know, because he dressed up for the tour.



FluidPudding says:

(I bet 200 isn't serious. I bet they would take 150.) It's hard for me to take you seriously, Media Cab.

I think Angela says all we need to know about this.

Finally, it was time to walk down the block to the school.
I was trying very hard not to blab on and on and very conscious of looking like a middle-aged mom. We were going to have a college tour! I was a little undone.

We found our way to a lounge in the admissions department, Middle filled out some forms and I worked hard to be aloof.
There were five or six other kids there with their parents.
A Japanese girl with her tiny bespectacled, suspendered dad.
An Angelina Jolie type in half a tee shirt.
A girl bent over a tiny sketch book, sketching furiously, with her dad in freaky glasses - taking a little nap.
A Film School type boy with Cons with quotes from movies written on them.
A guy on the phone dealing with a car repair.
And my favorite group - a woman with two daughters. WWTD was wearing a poncho and she looked flustered and annoyed. One of her daughters was Middle's age and very very tanned. The other was loudly trying to figure out where to shop while her family took the tour.
WWTD marched to the desk and made inquiries regarding tuition.
She was given a catalogue and sat on the stairs and complained.

An admissions counselor gave us a little speech, introduced us to our tour guide and sent us on our way.
The tour guide had the most beautiful accent (Portuguese?) and funky glasses. She was a film student.

We saw lots of wonderful things -



Large lab rooms for things I don't know about like Final Cut and Avid and After Effects and Rendering.



Room after room that looked like K's office in my basement. Minus about 4000 pounds of crappe.
Middle asked several impressive questions while WWTD asked ridiculous questions and did a good job of preventing me from being Embarrassing Mom. When she mentioned that she knew AC's do lighting work Middle caught my eye from across the room. (AC's are assistant CAMERA people and have nothing to do with lighting - and her faux pas would have been fine save for the fact that she made an ass of herself for most of the tour - talking and complaining.)



There was a lot of great workspace, it appears to be a very student driven school - and most of the kids were working very intensely.



It felt right. It was clearly a think-tank kind of place and I could easily imagine Middle flourishing there.
We ran into his Saturday teacher who was charming and very happy to see Middle.

WWTD cornered me in a hallway: DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS COSTS? She demanded. I looked at her with some disbelief, why would she be there if she didn't know about the school?
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE DORM FEES ARE? She made me very nervous. I brushed her off politely but, inside, I was angry - I heard her saying that she might send her daughter to the school because she "likes to take pictures." All I could think of was her daughter taking a coveted spot from another applicant, and not caring one way or the other.
She disappeared, with her daughter, about three quarters of the way through the tour.

After we were done being shown around, Middle had questions regarding combining two areas of study which I cannot hope to reproduce accurately here as I have only the most basic understanding of his concerns.
He wants to learn 3D computer effects which is part of the computer graphics department but wants to be a film student with a bent toward post production. Can those two things be combined? Our guide did not know and sent us back to admissions where we sat for quite a while with the Director Of Admissions for the Film Department who indulged Middle and talked at great length about the program and asked about his grades and encouraged him to seek a scholarship and offered to look at his reel and edit his application essay AND AND AND,
it would appear that the College Of Middle's choice is just as interested in HIM as he is in THEM.

And it was only in the very last moments of this meeting that I put my foot in, a little. Middle was explaining that he has been a film student for several years and has a bit of experience and knowledge of certain programs - he was asking if the most introductory courses would be: THIS IS A CAMERA, as he was worried that he'd spend freshman year bored. He was reassured that his skill would be assessed upon entry and that it sounded like he might be able to be exempt from the basics if he was more advanced and while Middle fumbled for the briefest moment, and was modest, I said: my husband is an editor and has worked in film for many years, I think what Middle is trying to say is that he has grown up in this world....
And then I shut right up and made myself very still and hoped that I had not overstepped. The Director was neither impressed nor annoyed and said that K must then know that The School Of Middle's Choice was the best environment for Middle to grow in.
And I quite agree.

We left exhilarated. We walked back to the train and Middle tried to explain why the cameras at the school were superior.
But I was deaf to these details.
I called K to tell him about our visit.
I Struggled to keep up.
I had the WWTD's words about the tuition rattling around in my head and worried about money.
I thought about how college hallways, full of students, seem so full of possibility and potential.
I shoved it all to the back of my brain and realized that Middle belongs there.
And when we got to the train and the excitement eased up, I told him that I hoped I didn't overstep by mentioning K - and he reassured me.
I told him I was very very proud of him, and he looked a little confused.
I told him he can go to school there and he looked excited, and he leaned back, put his earphonethings in his ears and settled in...while I let my thoughts race again and fought back the worry and imagined him, in the Fall of 09.
An inspired film student. At a wonderful school.



He'll fit right in.