A sense of poise and rationality

So I read this article in the New York Times about the Princeton Review's Counselor-O-Matic, sort of a "find your perfect college" tool. You take a little quiz and it give you a list of "good match" schools, reach schools and safety schools. So for kicks, I mentally traveled back in time five years or so and pretended like I was in high school looking at colleges. And lo and behold, among my "good match" schools were Brandeis and Vassar, my two top choices when I actually applied to college.

I remember visiting Tufts in high school and not being impressed at all, probably because we had a really boring tour guide. I didn't even apply. Now that I'm there, occasionally I'll think, "You know, I think Tufts would have been a really good fit for me as an undergrad," and then I think, "What am I talking about, I loved Brandeis." I think choosing a college is probably the first major decision a lot of teenagers have to make, and I think it really is a big decision -- I didn't meet my spouse at Brandeis like all the other good Jewish girls seem to, but if I hadn't gone there I wouldn't have made the friends that I made and I might not have made some of the choices I made and maybe I wouldn't be on the path that I'm on. Sometimes I think life needs a little George Bailey button -- some kind of tool where you can find out what things would have been like if something had gone differently. Life is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book where you don't get to stick a bookmark in the page and return to it later when something goes off track.