Now that I have been accepted to Carnegie Mellon, I am sort of glad that UMich is out of the picture. For the past few weeks, I was trying to convince myself that it\’s okay to be in the midwest. It\’s okay to be around thousands of religious conservatives (hey that\’s my perception of the midwest). And the winter. And that I won\’t be in a state that permits same-sex civil unions (not that it matters to me, but still).

And I would be surrounded by relatives that rarely communicate with family in California (my youngest cousin is going to attend umich as an undergraduate). Last week, I almost choked when my aunt (visiting the Bay Area) said that her youngest son could pick me up from UMich to go to Thanksgiving at her house. Thank you…but no thanks? Along with my sister, I feel like I am treated as the silent child (of the shining star of the family, my father) to be admired.

For some reason, Alecky told his family that I was going to visit UMich during their visiting days. To my amusement, his mother and brother told him (probably in a hushed voice so that my Berkeleyean mind wouldn\’t eavesdrop over 3000 miles), \”Alec, she\’s a bad influence.\”

Me a bad influence with my brand name undergraduate education? My high scores in relability and determination? My dependability? Bad influence?

I proceeded to tell Alecky to give his mother bad influence for her birthday.