Arrival

I have just received some joyous, exciting news the other day – it turns out that I have been accepted into Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Among the many things this means (one of them being that I no longer have to put up with the bullshit that comes with attending a huge, impersonal college) learning through a model of contemplative education and finally having the very purpose of why I came to Colorado in the first place come full circle. And while I am very excited, I have to go up to Boulder to resolve some potential issues that delay can just simply make much worse for me (namely those of the financial aid nature). This is more and more true simply because the university closes on the 23rd and I know that I will not have much time to get all of the financial aid forms signed and submitted so needless to say, this is a bum’s rush to get everything in on time. The simple reason being that the financial aid has to be paid to Naropa by the 4th of January or I will not be allowed to attend or register for courses, which means that I have to submit an appeal due to some issues which prohibited me from attending CCD (personal illness being one of them), having that appeal reviewed which should present no real problems as Naropa is a much smaller college and I have always been fairly prompt and honest with Nancy in financial aid (it is already drafted and will be in the hands of Naropa’s financial aid people before noon) and more pressing, getting the new master promissory note signed and back in the hands of the Department of Education. But once again, I feel that all of these things can be accomplished within the time frame allowed if admissions was dragging their feet this long to get me accepted in the first place so I would be able to advance with the financial aid process.

I have to admit, I totally was not expecting to get into Naropa and it was simply due to either (a) a severe lack of volunteer experience (I am very anti-social) or (b) CCD’s constant and proven inability to send my transcript the first two times I had requested it to be sent to Naropa. So, last week when I got the e-mail that I would hear about my application and the admissions office’s decision this week, I was excited simply because I thought that due to CCD’s constant ability to fuck up, I would be denied entry into what I consider to be one of the best universities on the North American continent. CCD was a very awkward experience from my very first days in classes at CCD because many of my classmates could not fucking read. I know, I was just as surprised as you are at this fact but I will tell you now, it is compounded by factors much worse than this. The fact that my fellow classmates could not read or pronounce a number of words did not shock me as much as the inability of the staff at staff to do anything in a timely manner and to inform me when things needed to be done. Like many people have said, CCD has a horrible habit of letting me know what I need to know a week after I needed to know it. I do not fault it too much, as it is a big college trying to meet and serve the needs of all of it’s students, but this is just not for me.

Naropa has the contemplative environment I so desire in a University and one of the values of Buddhism I hold most valuable and important. It is situated in a town that has this air about it that makes me feel as though I have arrived and I am finally at home, a feeling I have not had in my life except for when I was living in Calgary, Alberta. It is what drew me here to Colorado and into a state that honours my worth and dignity as a human being to the point of extending hate crimes legislation and the state level ENDA to protect me from discrimination as a transsexual woman. I also believe that I will eventually come to live permanently in Boulder as I do not feel that I could ever move away. In other words, I have truly arrived.

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Tags: Boulder, Buddhism, Buddhist, Buddhist-inspired, Colorado, Contemplative Education, education, higher education, Naropa, University