Chapter 57

I immediately clicked “accept”. Then, I sat down after I reread the words again and again. A few minutes later, I got the email that told me I got accepted and that I had a few days to think about the offer of admission. I chuckled a little on how I had already accepted before the secretary of the school was able to send me my acceptance email. I had no doubts this was where I wanted to go. After reading the acceptance email thoroughly, I took a picture of the webpage and sent it to my girlfriend as well as my mom. They were incredibly happy. 

What I did next was simply to take a look outside. I remember the sight. Outside of my window of the student residence on 259 Lester Street was a sunset that illuminated a half constructed building. Construction sites were not strange to see near the university. During the 4 years I spent at Waterloo I have seen countless buildings erect from the ground up. 

When I first started at Waterloo, there was a building called Columbia ONE which was all the rage for being one of the most luxurious condos in the region. Then, a few terms later, we got the Lux series, a bunch of condos next to Columbia ONE that rivaled its neighbor. Following that, we got 127 Lester and most recently, a new building known as Icon was the new thing on the block. Buildings literally arose as the four years went by. During that time, I was always so uncertain I would ever get to a point in my life when I could look over the neighborhood and feel happy about my future. 

Yet today, I made it. I have crossed the threshold of a dream and turned my dream, which felt impossible at times, into a reality. As I started at the sunset with a smile on my face. I felt like a great weight was lifted over me. I felt complete. 

While I was thrilled by the outcome, I was still a bit in awe. In fact, every couple of days, I would try and math out how probable my desired outcome was. The admissions and the method of choosing applicants was a mystery. So this is all speculation. However, I do think it is at least interesting to talk about. 

There’s an interesting theory about how the admissions worked. The first theory was that each province in Canada was allotted a certain amount of seats in the class of 90. This was thought to be true because this school was going to supply an entire country’s worth of Optometrists, there had to be some distribution or else some of the prairies may never receive any future eye doctors. Reasonable as this sounds, I never heard of any friends of mine getting acceptance letters that said “you must go back to whichever province you came from after graduation to practice optometry”. So that renders this theory as full of holes.

Furthermore, though the Waterloo Optometry school states directly that they have no bias towards students of the University of Waterloo, it is often commonplace to find a strong bias towards Waterloo undergrad students versus students of any other university. 

Regardless of how probable my outcome was, I was happy. This was essentially setting my career in place. This was because in Canada, the Optometry school’s dropout rate was zero. No one ever gets admitted and fails out. When people leave the class, it’s usually because of their own choice. This is usually also due to the fact that Med School hopefuls use Optometry school as a backup and apply into Med School during Optometry. 

Thinking back, I think the most surprising thing I found was that victories like this can turn some of the worst relationships you have into decently positive ones. Recall that I called my girlfriend and my mom after I got acceptance. Well…Why did I call mom? She was never really there in the past for any of my concerts or even my graduation from high school. She was an absentee. But I found that in the true face of victory, more so than in the face of adversity, no one really wants to celebrate alone. It’s easy to be alone when you’re sad or depressed. It’s hard to find yourself with a win and celebrate it with no one next to you. 

In my phone call to mom, I told her the good news and she, of course, played along. I don’t think she really understood why I was so happy about all of this. I didn’t care though. All the years of frustration with mom had melted away. I was so happy that I truly believed in all the things it took to get me here, including mom’s parenting style.

The third person I told was LP. He was a good person and therefore, was very supportive of me though he didn’t get an acceptance himself. I tried not to flaunt this over him but at the same time it was hard to not be excited about something like this. In case you’re concerned, you needn’t worry too much about him, he would get his acceptance the year afterwards and join me in the program. He was a rival of mine after all and he was a contender, he would do just fine. 

I thought that the feeling of accomplishment would die off quickly but in truth, it lasted the rest of the Winter Term. Everything felt lighter. I now had a certain future. Most of my cynicism disappeared. There was only one thing left to do. I had one more term of school where I would take my last music courses, which were required for me to complete my music major. 

I’ve said goodbye to music so many times in the past but I knew this was truly the end of the line. In professional school. There were literally no electives at all. Everything was structured and there was no room for music anymore. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if I’d have time for hobbies anymore.

What this meant was that next term, my last term with classical music, would have to count. It was my farewell to classical music and all the years I’ve spent with it.