Hemi Kim     Bandwagon Blues Late, and late again. The college application left a day after the deadline. I had a feeling mine wouldn't be the only straggler in a deluge of last-minute applications. All my life I've tried to fit in a box, so people would accept me. Now that an entity welcomes me, I wish to be different. It's taken me 17 years to discover myself, and now I'm sick of being bland. Call me a fluorescent light for taking so long. As opposed to an incandescent light. (This idiom might be unfamiliar because sadly U.Va. doesn't teach the Korean language.) I am "different" just by being myself, but years of conformity have molded me into a semi-Box. Renegades die out and/or eventually compromise with the rules of society. U.Va.'s a well-reputed, in-state school! Cliché means applying early-decision to U.Va. College was a vague goal that everyone said I should attain, and so I believed it. I was no red-nosed Rudolph: I forgot myself and blindly patterned my actions after others' existence. When time came to decide, I folded like a lawn chair to a flurry of expectations, and applied my high school career to U.Va. And hurry up because if you apply early-decision then those applications won't loom over you during the holidays. A hasty decision that I semi-regret. In a state of frustrating conformity, I jumped the gun and ignored my instincts to weigh all the possibilities of post-graduation. Could I have attended carpenter school like Jesus? College seems to be an excuse for parents to push their overgrown children out the door because the kids have no other ambitions, and the parents really do know what's best. Ew, college. It's taken me a while to accept the fact that I'm actually spending another four years in school. Let's recall 13 years of mindless conformity in K-12. Yuck. The problem with public school was that almost no one encouraged me to think as an individual. For much of my lifetime, I fit into a desk answering questions about other people's opinions. Yuck. I thrive in systems and institutions, although I resent them in the long run for their huge inefficiencies. U.Va. "junk" mailings fill my mailbox weekly. There's actually a program for parents to donate money in addition to tuition and fees. I've been swamped with seemingly-official U.Va. letters trying to rip me off with confusing things like U.Va. linens and a book of my fellow first years. Ha! They can't fool me -- as if I really need to submit my medical information! Sometimes I feel like college is a prison sentence, a twentysomething equivalent to wretched high school. It's a bad, subconscious attitude that's survived countless euphemisms. Hopefully I haven't cursed my college career with these negative attitudes ... As the college tidal wave settles, the crisis of my over-conformity reigns. (That, and the pre-gained "freshman fifteen" pounds of extra padding.) All my life I've used camouflage to find freedom in anonymity. I succeeded in school because I liked learning, but I joined the volunteer club because I heard "it's good for your college application." Then I started my own club because the first one proved inactive. I actively pursued the uniform of a typical college applicant, but the uniform fit awkwardly. By senior year, the concept of school revolted me. The government had forced me to endure countless lessons in conformity. Just sit in your desk and be quiet. As a trained clone, I learned from a superb English teacher that one opinion is better than a thousand fill-in-the-blanks. Here I am, a bastion of over-conformity, at a public institution (of conformity). Maybe I'd just rather spend my tuition on transcontinental enlightenment, plant-hugging with foreigners in big-city youth hostels and country farms. Why drain four more years like I spent the hellish years in compulsory schooling? Everyone says college is fun, so I believe them. A goat that is too wimpy, too smart, too safe to leave her Box. As August 29 (doomsday) approaches, my classes entice me, such as Seminar on Consciousness --the antithesis of high school. There, I'll be a floating helicopter bud set to fly in descent. It no longer irks me how mainstream I am. Rather than sulk about the fact that I share interests with millions of youth, positive attitudes reign. I'm anxious to sketch the big Magna-doodle of my life. Knowing I'd be watched, I had tole mah-self to just shit down and shuddup. Live up to the reputation? As King of the Hill has taught us, "there's a time and place for everything ... and it's called college."

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