In the midst of the daunting and seemingly endless quest to find the "perfect" college, ridiculous requests, pointless requirements, and time-consuming questionnaires are a constant presence. As a prospective music performance major, I've found myself wheedling away hour after hour of something which I certainly don't enjoy in abundance- time- to painstakingly complete fifteen-page applications, legibly printing my mother's maiden name and place of birth, and writing yet another essay about exactly why I am so darn fabulous. Some of my personal favorites include: "Describe the full extent of your talent" (in 250 words or less) and "How could you enlighten us?" Nonetheless, it is not any of the aforementioned examples which have left me with a truly engaging adventure to share. It is Rice University's standardized testing requirement: two SAT II's, regardless of major, which have baffled, and now amuse, me. You may want to find a comfortable seat for this one.

When I sent in my applications for college back in December, I did notice Rice's testing requirement, although I brushed it off at the time. I decided that, surely, an oboist would have no need to prove her knowledge of U. S. history or physics. It's the audition that really counts, right? When I received a letter from the university during the Christmas holidays, however, I learned that not only must I pat my head, but rub my tummy too; I signed up for the SAT II's, in Literature and history, a mere two days before the deadline. Because I had signed on so late, though, there were no testing centers available near NCSA. Instead, I took the closest option, Greensboro, and later begged a friend to drive me over at 7:00 AM on test day.

The weekend finally arrived, and the night before the test, I promised myself an early bedtime. Unfortunately, a few friends wanted to hang out in my room ­ well past my ideal "lights-out"-- and I didn't have the heart to ask them to leave. At 3:00 AM, with the room to myself, I set my alarm and crawled into bed.

An unbelievably short period of time lapsed, and suddenly my alarm was blaring obnoxiously, at 6:30, relative to the sound of an overzealous soprano saxophone. Actually, more like that quick brass chord during the third movement of that one piece in Wind Ensemble, "From a Dark Millenium." Anyway, I made a quick judgment call, sacrificing my shower, and reset the clock for 6:50. My twenty extra minutes passed, and the alarm was screaming again. As I whacked it to stop the cacophony, I made a fatal error, and lay back on my pillow, with the intent of counting to fifty before I rolled out of bed. While I consciously remember reaching seventeen- my memory is foggy after that- the next thing I recall was sitting up in bed and glancing at the clock: 7:40!

I leapt out of bed, and with one leg tied up in sheets, I jumped to the floor, only to trip on my roommate's desk. Perhaps the subsequent somersault across the room was what definitively woke me; after pulling myself off the cold floor­ under my roomie's bed, I might add- I realized that the test was scheduled to start in eighteen minutes, just forty-five minutes away. Well, shit. My life, or at least my collegiate, musical, professional life, seemed to be over (in a totally not-at-all-melodramatic way!).

The only other thought running through my head concerned my ride to Greensboro. Was there any way that, forty-three minutes later than planned, she'd still be waiting in the lobby downstairs? Opting for an affirmative, I raced out of my room and down to the dorm entrance, in my pj's, without glasses or a One Card. Unable to see much, I was only downstairs for a few seconds before I saw a large blur approaching from behind me, on my right.

"Hey honey," it drawled, in a crackly yet warm cleaning lady's voice. "What's you doing at this hour dressed like dat (I usually sleep in shorts and a tank), when dee cold weather's a'brewin da way it is?"

"Has anyone been waiting around down here?"

"Well, now dats you ax, there waws a girl, she's been waiting since Œbout 7:00 or so. She jes' went out to huh car, only a moment ago."

Seizing this new information, I made my next move to the parking lot, in the hopes that my friend might be sitting comfortably in her car, waiting on my sleepy self to arrive. Without my glasses, however, I'm basically blind, and so while I could scantly make out two cars in the lot, I certainly couldn't see their inhabitants. I went up to a white SUV first, but no one was inside. To the right was a red Honda-ish vehicle. As I approached, I still couldn't tell who, if anyone, was in the driver's seat, so I got close and pressed my face against the window- to find what looked like someone's very surprised middle-aged father blinking back at me. A bit awkward, but I didn't have time to stay and chat, much less explain. I turned to head back to my room when I reached into my pocket and found... no One Card. I chased the friendly cleaning lady down (she was veeerrrrryyyyy slowly on her way to the Pickle) and begged to borrow hers for just a minute, after which I ran up to my room and sat at my desk to do the only reasonable thing which came to mind: bawl. I had no earthly clue how to contact my friend, who's cell number I had so intelligently never written down; unsure of any other option, I turned on my laptop and logged on to my lifeline: Facebook.

"OH MY GOD
CALL ME NOW"

I frantically typed onto my friend's "wall", following that message with my cell number. I sat for about a minute and a half, debating the extent to which I'd completely screwed myself, when she called. After succeeding to calm me a bit, she convinced me that calling a cab would be my only chance, so we hung up and I dialed Blue Bird Cab Company.

"Blue Buhd Cab."

"Um, yes. I need a cab NOW, to Greensboro, from NC Arts. Is that possible?"

"Ok. Where you be?"

"S. Main Street."

"No, I mean where you be?"

"NC Arts."

"NO. A, B, C, D, E, Sanford, Moore ­ where you be?"

"Oh, sorry. Sanford"

"Ok, well, den we go have a cab for yuh at dee Sanford dorm on S. Main St."

"Sir, wait...!"

You see, Sanford isn't on S. Main.

I wasn't sure where he meant for me to go, but I grabbed all the cash I could find and headed down to the Sanford parking lot, where I waited for approximately six minutes and thirty-eight seconds before deciding that maybe the cab guy actually meant the S. Main entrance. After sprinting over to the other side of campus, I waited for a few minutes. Nothing. I sprinted back to my dorm, to find a dirty white cab waiting; I slid into the back seat when I was greeted with a nauseating, overtly sexual "Hey, baby" followed by " So, do you always dress like that?" Ignoring my (at least) fortyish cabbie, I directed him to Page High in Greensboro, at which point he informed me that he's "never been to G-town." He called one of his "connections," though, and quickly we were on our way. After an uncomfortable forty minutes of forced conversation and double entendres, we reached the school. "That'll be $71.00 even."

I gathered together all the money in my purse: $70.50, and thrust it into his hands, apologizing for coming up short. He assured me it was fine, gave me his card, told me to call "whenever I want", and I rushed into the building.

It was, at that point, 9:05, and SAT registration was most assuredly over. Unsure of where to go in a foreign school, I spotted a strapping young fellow at the end of the corridor, sporting the always fashionable "pants around the knees" look.

"Hey, do you know where the auditorium is?" I called.

"Yeah, you go through dem does, den through anotha set of does, and den you go come to a doe marked "Drama", and den you go' go through the secret passageway."

WHAT? Whatever. I followed his instruction though the doors, where, lo and behold, I found another set of doors. Past them was a door marked "Drama", beyond which was a very attractive student working on a costume of some sort. Hey, why not; I asked about the secret passageway.

"Yeah, right over there."

Go figure. I opened what looked like a tornado cellar door, and proceeded down a rather dank, dark set of stairs into a musty, although entirely functional, auditorium. On the stage was a round, older janitor type, with a long white ponytail. I explained a, well, "slightly altered" version of my story, one which didn't involve me sleeping too late, and he offered to walk me over to counseling to straighten everything out. After swaying a room of several annoyed counselors sporting the "I-got-up-at-six-on-a-Saturday-for-SAT-registration" expression to feel some compassion for me, I was taken down the hall to see the SAT coordinator. She agreed to let me take my tests, but with one stipulation: I had to finish at the same time as the other students, leaving me half the time to prove my standardized testing intelligence.

No matter ­ I was saved.

When the time was up, a short hour and five minutes later, I left the room, and realized that the full content of my jacket pocket added up to a bobby pin, a tube of lip balm, and roughly, eh, five pennies. As I was debating how on earth to get back to Winston on no cash, I opened my phone to find a missed call ­ from my friend. As I headed outside, I called her back to see if she'd been able to get back to sleep, practice, etc.

"Hey, girl," she answered on the first ring.

"Hey! So, how's your morning been?"

"Alright. The funniest thing happened, though."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Well, I took a drive, and ended up at this random schoolŠoh, it's called Page High School, in Greensboro."

"Are you kidding me? I'm at Page High in Greensboro!"

"Yes, I know, you're the girl over there in front of the flowery bush, in the red jacket, looking like a total idiot. Come on, I'm in the silver car. Let's go home."

As we merged onto the interstate, I leaned my head back on the seat. Musing over the two tests on which I had most likely just performed quite poorly, I realized something strengthening, something gratifying, and exciting. Just as the outcome of those SATs didn't matter in the slightest when stacked up against each of the obstacles I had overcome to even make it through the morning that Saturday, it is not the extent of our accomplishments in life which measure the value of the life we've led. It is not the merits we've won, the earthly possessions we've acquired. Our lives are measured in growth and in gall, in passion and in perseverance. It's how we handle our journey on the roller coaster called life that shows us what's important, and of what we're really made.

So what if I don't get into Rice? I've got a helluva story.

permanent link: http://www.kudzugazette.com/mar1207/ride.php