Chapter 17

I wouldn’t really recognize the ramifications of quitting until later. This was because things were about to get so busy that there would be no time to really stop and think much at all. The main reason for the busy season? My exodus had occurred around the same time as applications for university.

The application process for university itself didn’t take that long. All I needed to do was simply submit an application form with some schools circled and some programs circled. I think we were allowed 4 applications for free per form submission. I don’t have the exact numbers. I think if you wanted to apply for more than 5 universities, you had to pay an additional $60 or so. 

What was a bit more convoluted was OSAP. This was the Ontario Student Assistance Program, the student loans of Canadian students. It was still just some forms but this time it was just so much more information I had to pull so this did take some more time. 

Despite all my saving up for tuition with lifeguarding money, I was still going to be short. The main reason? Residence. While I could have gone to a University in Toronto and stayed home, I decided to go to Waterloo, which was in Kitchener. This means I had to pay rent. The reason I think I chose Waterloo was two fold. The first was that the only Optometry school in Canada was there. The second reason was that most of the students from my high school would be going there. Furthermore, I already knew people in Waterloo and it just seemed like the best place to keep some of my support networks from crumbling.

I didn’t really consider my mom’s thoughts on my choices at all. This was nothing new. I was making my own decisions and had my own spending money. I was pretty independent for the most part. The only thing I needed from mom was money to help me with residence. Our relationship had already been getting to a point of just being a transaction but it was almost completely like a bank at this point. I had asked mom for an investment opportunity of giving me an education to get better jobs in the future and mom had decided to invest the money in me. While she didn’t help with my tuition, she did help with my residence fees. I kept track of the money she was going to spend on my residence and had decided long ago to pay her back when I could. I don’t think we even thought twice about me leaving the home I had been part of for my entire time in Canada. I don’t think leaving mom behind to live by myself gave me any heartfelt moments of clarity nor nostalgia. I think at this point, I was ready to live by myself, emotionally at least. 

The busy time of university applications gave a perfect excuse to go without thinking of the void left from no longer taking private lessons with CC. They weren’t a perfect distraction though. As I mentioned, they were pretty easy to complete and if I’m being honest, since I was applying for a science program with decent grades, there wasn’t really a huge competitive race for spots in programs. The acceptance rates for science programs were pretty lenient. Some would even say too much so. Does that sound kind of cocky to say? I hope it does because…well…Let me explain. 

My high school, Agincourt Collegiate Institute, was not semester based. This meant that instead of other high schools where students would take 4 courses for half the year and then another 4 courses for another half a year, we would get 8 courses throughout the entire year at a slower pace than the other schools. By the time I had quit CC and finished my university applications, I was just at the point of finishing my midterms.

The students in my school knew the drill. In grade 12, we would apply to university with our tentative average, or sometimes our highest 6 courses’ tentative average. The universities would then see how we are currently doing in school and make offers for us based solely on how we have performed so far in the year. The offers, if made, would be conditional on the basis of us completing the classes by the end of the year. This was just how things worked. I knew that I was going to get accepted into the science program. Like I said, it wasn’t hard. Furthermore, I knew that when I got the acceptance, the conditions would be kind of easy to meet. I say this mainly because the lowest average for acceptance was around 75% for most students and I was well above this. I was pretty sure I could’ve failed a few tests in the later years and still get into the school I wanted. The only thing I had to do was not completely screw up. The bare minimum wasn’t what I was aiming for though. If I can raise my grades a bit better before the end of the year, I may qualify for a scholarship or two. I wanted that money. So there was incentive to still do well in school. 

So as you can see, getting into university wasn’t that difficult. I know we haven’t talked about my science courses in lots of chapters of this blog but if you’ll recall, I was doing a lot of science in school. It just wasn’t that interesting is all. I would go to class, come home after whatever job or music I had to do after school and then cram science courses. The only thing that doesn’t quite add up is how I found time to still do well in high school but you’ll find out soon enough. Anyhow, back to right after midterms. I had quit CC and finished my university application and right after the last university application and OSAP form was submitted, I felt a calming feeling. Things had slowed down quite a lot. I had a small break in my schedule. It was slightly too early to try and start studying for finals and not doing private lessons with CC outside of school felt a bit surreal. It was only now that I would fully recognize how I am free from CC’s grasp.

I think I was taken back from the freedom that I now realized I had. I had not had free time like I have now for a while. I was so used to something planned every day that even a single empty afternoon or two made me feel kind of empty. What do I do now? In my afternoons I used to practice cello for CC’s lessons the new week but now I had nothing to do. No more plans. What should I do? I decided to focus more on music in my school. But there was only so much more I could’ve done in school. They were still doing just simple public school orchestra things and it wasn’t very hard to master the repertoire. So what now? 

I realized that I wasn’t really sure. I decided to just go with the flow.