I sincerely apologize

to all I offended with my comments on Sam's post.

I told you it was going to be bad.

I writing you becuase it is four in the morning and I am supposed to be working on three massive health units, all of which have to be done by friday or I don't graduate. Anyway, I have writers block, so I thought I'd talk to you all for a while.

Just got back from the weird cross country trip. Spent the first three days in Ithaca (which was beautiful) and then after getting back tuesday evening, left at 6:00 wednesday morning with my band for seattle. It's feeling a bit surreal. Band tour went as well as could be expected--we had a couple workshops with colleges; some of which were more effective than others; we got to see the group Stomp, I found the worlds most wonderful crumpet shop, had one fight with my roommates, couple kids got drunk, nobody got pregnant. All in all a fairly good trip.

At long last I know where I am going to college. I liked cornell, but the financial aid when it came made it not even an option. My dad and I did the numbers and figured it out to be that if we ignored all costs such as travel or books and my parents paid a third of their gross yearly income, I would graduate with a 40,000 debt--assuming I did not get sick or go to graduate school, neither a good assumption.

So I'm going to St. Olaf. Its a good school and I did like it, I am just a little bummed that it doesn't really have a jazz program. On the plus side, because my sister went there, a lot of the professors--in particular the music faculty--already know me to some extent. And, because of national merit, I will be able to graduate from there debt free which will be a major load off my back. And yes, like Emma, I am writing this in part to convince myself that I made a good choice.
I'd better get back to my health. Nothing like an impending deadline to really make you lose sleep. I really dig junk that nobody, not even the teacher, likes. We're required to do it because some idiot over in the salem legislature has decided that we, as students, have obviously not heard the phrase "Abstinence is the only..." enough times and we should have it pounded into our skulls a few thousand more before we graduate.

miss you all

-bern