Chapter IV: The Evil School Itself
(April 2004 - May 2004)

"I really can't talk to anyone else - and would you recommend talking to my sister? Her ideas, offered unsolicited, are the most crazy things I've ever heard."
-Zion "The Book" Cao Cao

Shortly after the email describing the Jackson incident, Zion sent me the following brief email:

Hey, I'm flying in a moment so I thought I'd send you a quick email to tell you I'm going to Georgia, Maine, and Massachusetts to visit Emory, Colby and Amherst respectively.

"Oh no!" I said. "Not that damn Amherst thing again!" I said. Zion and I had already argued about this many times before. For those who, like me, don't make a lifetime obsession out of memorizing the names of every school on the east coast, Amherst is a "famous" university which apparently is a popular choice for those who wish to persue a career as a politician or law maker. This was apparently the reason why Zion wished to attend this school. Or it could be that his sister was already attending this very school at the time. Of course when he first introduced the school to me I had never even heard of it and he was oddly offended by this fact. I was rather correctly offended by the fact that he was under the impression that everyone else on the face of the earth should love this school as much as he seemed to. To solve the arguement we made three way calls to all our friends and polled them to find out their opinions on Amherst. Most confirmed they had never heard of the place. Only a small handful were actually familiar with the school and most of them had only heard about it from Zion himself, who they wished would shut up about the darn place already.

I had hoped that poll had settled the Amherst issue and I would never have to hear about that evil place again. Sadly, it was not to be. I sent Zion an angry email reminding him of the results of our "poll" and telling him to stay away from that place. As usual he didn't listen to me and instead had this to say in reply:

I'm actually sending you an email from the evil college itself now. I only have five minutes to write it. At first I was scared because the computer at the library opened a log-in menu for me, but evidently "guest" works. Two potentially evil things about this campus is that this is an iMac. I also can't find IE on this computer so I'm using Netscape. It seems to work unlike previous versions, however. The other interesting thing is that this keyboard is by far the loudest I have ever typed upon - and it's in a library. This is the same library where my sister "shushed" me yesterday for talking in a normal voice. And yet they have a trumbone band playing on the main floor. This place is crazy. I hear no other typing despite the fact that there are about fifty people on computers around me. Maybe it's just me and my lack of willing the keyboard to be silent skills.

Funny thing is that I haven't actually made up my mind on colleges yet. I liked Emory's academics, Colby's social scene, and I'd actually pick Amherst because of the renown. Yes, I know this goes totally against what you just said, and in retrospect I have to agree. No random person in Colorado is going to pick up on Amherst and go "Wow, what a great school!" But they have about the best record in the country when it comes to getting into law schools like Harvard or Yale, (Even better than Harvard and Yale's record of getting into Harvard and Yale law school..) so that would be what's gunning for it.

Academically I hate it here. I just had a Check professor tell me that their political science department focuses on theory and that they haven't had an urban politics course in twenty years. At least I made him feel embarrased about that. I was pissed at him because he spent two minutes talking about how unprepared for the meeting I was when I didn't read the course book. This after he hadn't responded to my voice or email demands for a meeting for two weeks and I had to come into the building today and demand he go to work so I could meet with him.

The evil school itself.

And yet, the next email was even worse:

BTW, I decided on a college, and I doubt you'll like the choice, (although I don't think you truly care.) I'm going to Amherst. Yes, I fully acknowledge that random people in the West don't stand a great chance of knowing what Amherst is, but it is the #1 or #2 liberal arts college in the country, so it should get me into the grad schools I want presuming I work and get a good LSAT score.

All sense a logic would suggest this was a terrible decicion. Zion seemed convinced it wasn't though. Despite the fact he used the rest of that email to complain about all the problems this decision caused for him. Atleast I can congratulate him on having enough sense and ambition to dump his insane girl friend so he can go to Amherst, even though that is analogous to the old saying "Out of the frying pan and into the fire."

This decision has caused hell to set itself upon me. I've been leaning towards going away for awhile now, (actually I've always been leaning that way,) but I didn't formerly decide until yesterday. Everyone like my parents and friends congratulated me and gave me presents - but Ari just about killed me.

Actually she didn't yell at me or anything like that, but she was quite upset and has totally fallen apart. I'm typing this on about three hours of sleep and some other disadvantages you might be able to guess at. For some reason I thought I could be honest and this would take care of itself in a manner that might be tragic; but somewhat sane. I was wrong.

End point: I don't know what the hell to do. She has directly asked me, "Will you marry me?" over a dozen times in the last 48 hours, sometimes in more interesting positions than others, (and a few times before I told her the news.) Needless to say - this is very disconcerting - and a great deal more intense than any previous situations I have dealt with. She's made it clear she doesn't want to break up under any conditions, and has said just about every way too attached thing you can think up, ("I couldn't ever be happy with anyone else", "I'll always have all my love even if you leave." etc.) Ultimately, I don't know if she can be happy in the next four months if she knows I'm going away, however.

If Ari ever does manage to trick a man into getting married to her, I suspect the wedding day will look a bit like this.

She wants to do a long-term relationship, (ideally with a full engagement right now,) I, frankly, don't. Not that I don't love her, mind you, but spending two years away from my partner and love just doesn't stike me as a happy situation for either of us. I'd actually be okay breaking up with her, although I'd like to leave the possibility of getting back together if locale worked out. Here we run into almost a Seinfieldian "I don't agree with you breaking up with me" problem - only four months in advance. I can also consider breaking up with her right now too.

What my sister suggested - which seems kinda crazy to me - is an open relationship, (she also thinks Ari could become a stalker). Evidently this means we're still attached to each other, with the idea of eventually resuming an exclusive relationship once locale works out, but we can essentially mess around with other people. My sister gave me what I thought was a damn good script for this, which needless to say didn't work at all. Ari basically approved it completely if I would promise to come back to her in two years, and preferably marry her then. That streches my moral code to the max. That's almost like being engaged but being allowed to screw around with other people for awhile. Bit too much like cheating for my taste.

Arg, it seems I'm going to have to hurt her. Now the great thing is I get to decide how. Bah. I hate lose-lose-lose situations. I do feel I'd be happy spending the rest of my life with her, but it just doesn't work to marry a 16-year-old sophomore IMO.

"Oh sure, NOW you figure that out, Zion. Where was that logic when you started going out with her in the first place? Ar!"

I don't know what I said to Zion, but it was probably something along those lines. While I saved all the emails he sent to me, it didn't occour to me at the time to save my emails to him. I had no idea at the time I would one day be using these conversations to write our guild history. Whatever I told him, it must have been something telling him he should have never let things get this messed up in the first place. His reply:

It's easier to go as a loner - sure. I'll even throw some financial advantages into that arguement. But it's just not as much fun, despite this goddamned mess. I'd also throw the whole love point in, but it might sound hypocritical since I'm leaving my girlfriend to go to the other end of the nation. I don't know why I consulted you - I really can't talk to anyone else - and would you recommend talking to my sister? Her ideas, offered unsolicited, are the most crazy things I've ever heard.

Meanwhile Duh's school was planning its final revenge on Zion... or perhaps he was planning his final revenge on it:

One advantage of skipping High School is you never had a Senior Prom, or likely went to any other prom for that matter. You're lucky in that, this is going to be expensive. Hopefully I'll get my parents to pay for most of it. I don't even have any great creative things to pull. I can't even spike the punch because there is no punch at our prom! Arg, they even changed the prom theme from "Pirates of the Carribian" to "Gone with the Wind", though, so maybe I can work with that. I wonder if Luke still has that pirate flag, or where I can acquire a giant fan.

Go to Chapter V, Duh's Revenge