In Which Carmen Gripes About Parental Interference

[xaara]

I can't think straight. Like, literally, every time I sit down to write or draw or even just read, I end up doodling or tapping my fingers for about five seconds before getting up to do something else. I annoy myself, so I know I must be annoying my family and my friends. And the thing of it is, I know why I'm doing it. It's my default stress reaction, which I got under control this November when I had about a million things a month to get done, but which is now back full force with my parents breathing down my neck about money.

I think that this time it's the Trachtenberg Scholarship I'm scared of. It's this wonderful package for DC public school graduates--it includes tuition, room and board, living expenses...to go to GW. And the way I stand now, as valedictorian of my school, I stand a very good chance of receiving it. There's only one problem, though.

I really really really don't want to go to GW.

So I'm not going to go there. And I shouldn't even have applied, because even though I told my parents explicitly that they were not to pressure me to take the Trachtenberg, they're doing it anyway. At the time, however, GW was my safety--a place I knew, a place I could get a free ride, a place that I'd be comfortable with even if I, say, got hit by a bus tomorrow and ended up a paraplegic and couldn't really handle the Midwest. Safety.

Now, Mom and Dad are mentioning the Trachtenberg every other breath. They're living up to their word in not exerting any direct pressure on me, but they're parents--they know the power of the Guilt Trip. Offhandedly, they'll mention how tight the whole Money Situation will be when I'm at college; in the next sentence they'll extol the virtues of living in downtown D.C.; before I've had a chance to escape, they'll have moved on to how I'm going to have to work summers in college to pay for even a little of how much it's going to cost. And then they drop the Trachtenberg Bomb. "We'd get you a nice place in D.C." they say. "We'd never visit."

Except they would visit--incessantly, in fact--and I dislike GW with a passion. I'm not going there. Period. But if they make me feel guilty one more time about turning down the Trachtenberg (and okay, I put myself in the position by applying to GW in the first place but still) I'm going to murder someone.

Comments

[lady-of-winter.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch. I offer you my sympathies- parents are not completely on me in regards to the college issue yet, since I have "three semesters to go", but they ARE on me about scholarships and credentials. -sigh- Good luck.