Explore USC: Day 3 - The Interview

     

I took no pictures on this day, so here's a random photo of the School of Cinematic Arts.

So, my relationship with sleeping had not been fixed during the previous day, as it turned out, which is most probably why I woke up at 5 a.m., once again. And, unlike at the hotel, there was not much I could do while lying on the floor of a dark dorm room with my roommate asleep, which made this early-waking up thing a bit less bearable. In hindsight, though, maybe this is what California does to me. Maybe I'll turn out to be a morning-person there, and wake up at 6 a.m. every day! Or maybe I was simply nervous about the interview, and my subconscious decided that I need to wake up early so that I can read through my application essay once again. Which was what I ended up doing.

4 pages of post-modern blabber and obscure French films, followed by a trip to the communal showers, and lots of pre-interview anxiety. Also, bad breakfast choices. That pretty much describes my last morning in LA. 

After that, however, was my time to shine. Megan had a review session, thus I couldn't keep my luggage in her room, so the two of us - me in full-on business attire - took off to the SCA building, dragging my roll alongs behind us. So fun. There, I said goodbye to Megan (sad) and was greeted by two people (can't remember names, I think one of them was an associate professor, sorry...) who already knew my name!!! For real! They also had a guy called Hans (shoutout to Hans!), who was just so, so, so nice to me, talk to me about the interview and answer my last questions etc. But more on him later, because before we could talk too much it was time to start the...

INTERVIEW. The whole reason for me being there. The 20 minutes that decide my fate. An interview that either guarantees my place at USC, or shatters my entire world. I'm not even being over-dramatic, I still shudder when I think about how much was at stake. And how little I perceived of it. Seriously, there were supposed to be three people interviewing me (a professor, a faculty member & a current student) but instead I got the Chair of the department, which was intimidating in itself, but then he began having a casual conversation with me, trying to persuade ME to attend (!!). I mean, I was preparing for a doctoral defense, I was preparing to defend every sentence of my application essay, and instead we had a casual conversation. Which, don't get me wrong, was extremely informative and enjoyable, but I didn't know where to put it...It was one of the best conversations I've ever had, but it didn't feel like an interview at all. 

I don't really want to get into details, but we even finished five minutes late and it didn't feel so long at all. It felt like 15 minutes at most. And outside, Hans was waiting for me, and the guy working there was joking around with me, and I instantly felt like I already belong there. I just wanted to stay. Send someone else home with my ticket. I'm sure many people would have been happy with a flight ticket to Europe. 

Unfortunately, however, that was not the case. I had to leave SCA, and I couldn't even wait for the fancy lunch they had for Explore students, as my shuttle picked me up at 12:20 p.m. Hans took me to California Pizza Kitchen, we had another great conversation, he promised to take me to Disneyland, took me to Entrance 2 and left for class. And there I was, waiting for Prime Time Shuttle, majorly freaking out once it didn't arrive on time, and crying and crying and crying on the inside.

I spent more than 2 hours at LAX, shopping and looking around. My flight home was with Air France, who have USB ports on their planes, and leather headphones, and better films than KLM (I started watching The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but fell asleep), but crazily uncomfortable seats. Also, the French business executive next to me also happened to be playing - wait for it - Candy Crush. Congratulations.

I could tell you about the rest of my journey home, but it was less exciting. Remember my trip to Paris I still didn't publish the post on? Well, I waited for my connection at the exact same terminal as back then. It was also at Aéroport Charles de Gaulle that I found out I got accepted to Kenyon College. YAY! There was a Hungarian couple next to me on my way to Budapest, who were coming home from Mexico and had a gigantic sombrero that was too big to fit into the overhead compartment. On my way home with the shuttle, I met a German medical student named Max, who was also really - wait for it - amazing. I have a small vocabulary of positive adjectives. The moment I got home, I told my mom that I hated being back in cold and depressing Hungary. She understood.

I still stand by that. I hate being back home. Explore USC was perfect.

Paris - Day 0

I wrote this post a year ago. I'm still astounded by how much my writing has changed/improved(?) in the past year. Please excuse my awkward phrasing at times.

'Twas on the night of September 25, 2013, that I took a little, friendly Air France flight to Paris. Originally having a seat in the last row by the toilets, I kindly asked the unfriendly lady at the check-in to give me a seat rearrangement, and she granted my wish and gave me a nice place by the window, right by the wing of the plane.

View from my seat. For some reason, I have a terrible fear of taking pictures from a plane.

Being my usual self I was quite early, and had to linger around the duty-free shops for about an hour, looking at overpriced magazines, but soon enough it was 7:20 PM and we could start boarding. The plane was completely full, and the French football fans sitting in front of me did not help. Next to me were a Hungarian couple extremely immersed in gossip magazines.

This is not my usual photo quality, and I have no idea why I'm posting a bad picture of a waiting area.

It was already dark by the time of the takeoff, so I could see Budapest by night from above, and finally Paris by night. It was quite a bit beautiful, if you ask me. No really, it was an amazing sight. Air France also knows how to make delicious salmon sandwiches, so that's another plus.

I arrived at about 10:10 PM, and was greeted by my cousins. Unfortunately they did not have a board that said SPANYI, and that would've been cool. They did take a picture of my glorious arrival though, and send it to my dad, as I found out later. And my mom. And probably all of my extended family.

Then, we had to speed up a little, in order to catch the RER to Paris. which - as I was to find out -cause more ear popping than airplanes. After getting off the RER, we transferred to a subway line, then to another subway line, then I lost count of all the Parisian subways, and then we walked a little only to arrive at my cousin's apartment, from where you can see the Eiffel Tower (!), and the Gare de Lyon, which I originally mistook for the Big Ben. Forgive me, I was tired.

We had baguette with tuna cream for dinner, and at that moment, our habit of eating sandwiches with various fish products was established.

That is my day #0 in Paris in a nutshell, You think this was a long post? Wait until tomorrow's. And I didn't even mention the infamous fountain yet...