Common App and stuff

During a short break, from my chemistry lab work today, which doesn't come very opften, I passed by a public computer and so I checked my gmail inbox with it. I received some emails from Pam and they were all about college application, one being the latest promtps in the common app. The Common App for year 2013-2014 came out just a day ago, and although nothing much besides that has realyl changed, the Common App somehow marks the start a new chapter of my high school life - the final chapter. Boy, I am going to college. Going to a college I like in America has been my ultimate dream and goal in the past few years, and most of the choices I made have to do with it. But it has never felt so real until now.

And then I thought of Stanford. Stanford was the first American University I visited, but it wasn't for admission or anything related. My aunt brought me there because she said she liked the unique vibe and the energy one could only find there (and also it was only 10 minutes away from her house). Needless to say, I liked it a lot as well, yet I didn't realyl know why. Maybe it was the Californian weather that had hipnotized us. I remember that back in those afteroons, she and I would just sit right outside of the Jamba Juice on the edge of the campus and watched people pass by, either on skateboards or bikes. There would be music mixing with people's chattering, and people would start gathering at the plaza, getting ready for the night. I liked to think that most of them would be going to San Francisco, for one it sounds really cool (any cities with a 4-syllable names are cool), and for two it was the only major city I knew, although I didn't really know that the city was like. I imgained the city of San Fran to be filled with people like those I saw at the plaza, but the seemingly boundariless land would be replaced by skyscrapers and electrical sparkles from the countless windows. It would have an urban pace, and the vibe my aunt found will be concentrated and magnified. However, after all these years, I've never visited San Francisco with my Aunt, and although I have been there on my own, it was already quite a few years after, and at that point of time my childhood memory could no longer manefist itself and reflect on the actual scene I witnessed. Now I pay attention to diferent things and care about different values. When I hear the name of a college,  its ranking and prestige would be the first that came into my mind. I realize that I don't really know what I am making myself go into, and that I start to care about things that didn't matter to be before. I have let other things define what I should pursue after, and I'm no longer able to just watch people pass by without thinking about all the names and titles they are associated with.