I refuse to accept the evidence that I am old and sad.

Because CASPA not only needs to know everything about my academic history, but needs to know it from several different points of view, I took a little tour yesterday. It was harrowing and disturbing, so naturally it's a story that needs to be told here.

I've gone through my own copies of all my college transcripts and entered every college course I've ever taken; this sounds like no big deal unless you know that I basically drifted around for several years, studying nothing in particular. The idea was to knock off basic requirements like English, Math, and Social Sciences, and to an extent it worked. However, when I went back to the U at the age of 25, finally getting somewhat organized, I had taken a full four years' worth of coursework, and only about a third of it was accepted in transfer.

All in all, the listing on my grad school application has four colleges, spanning 27 academic terms, and 77 courses. This may change slightly as I clarify whether the English course I took while a high-school senior should count. I got U credit for it, so yes... but on the other hand, that would mean I've been in college, on and off, for over 18 years. That just ain't right, because last time I looked, I am not a wealthy and esteemed neurosurgeon.

Yesterday compounded and focused the agony, because I had to arrange official copies to be sent to CASPA, together with the official CASPA form. Not wanting to dick around with faxing or mailing documents, this meant a drive up memory lane. Actually revisiting the various community colleges I attended was pretty hellish; who wants to bask in the misty memories of the C they got in Geography of Western Europe at the local ju-co? And how much worse if it was so long ago, you can't actually remember all that much about being there in the first place?

Long story short, somewhere among the current crop of freshmen at Anoka-Ramsey, there is almost surely someone who would have been born when I was a freshman at Anoka-Ramsey CC.