Oh, oh that's my cue!

Yesterday, I finally received the official letter from Boise State University affirming that the Music Department will give me $2,000 in scholarship money. While this will only be a small amount compared to $12,000 in tuition and fees for an out-of-state student (ouch!), it's better than what that very-cool-but-rather-expensive-school in Wisconsin offered me - nada. So the other day, I sent them the little "I will not be attending U. Wisc-Madison" card. I was truly honored to have been admitted to that program in the first place, and the audition out there was definitely worth the money and effort for the experience alone. So, Boise...
Any time I tell anyone here in Boston that I'm going to Idaho they look at me like I grew another head all of a sudden, and they say something about potatoes. Never fails, because potatoes are all we New Englanders know about Idaho. And the funny look is because we are raised in a snobby intellectual atmosphere that says, educationally, there is nothing worth visiting between here and California. This isn't terribly encouraging to me, as you may imagine! Still, I think it's where God wants me... though I'm not sure how I'll like it, and after six years of not liking my schools (except for the four awesome months at UM), I really, really want to like my school. So I am pretty ambivalent and not a little scared about the move. On the other hand, my violin teacher here has visited Boise and she thinks I'll like it, and both she and my parents believe that I'll flourish outside out of the stress of this city. And then this morning, reading an e-mail from my advisor at Boise State, the Graduate Program Coordinator, I started to get an inkling of excitement, reading how "there are several incoming graduate violinists" - woohoo! peers! - and there may yet be money for me as a Marching Band Assistant ("No marching required") and seeing the dates for the predictive exams in Music Theory and History and seeing how supportive and friendly both my advisor and future violin teacher have been already and noting the audition date for the orchestra and... It's happening. I'm going to a real music school. I'm going to get a Masters of Music. Wow. Thanks God.