It's Friday and I Finishe My Applications, Time for FUN

So I just finished my grad school applications. It is now out of my hands and I have to sit back and wait. For a person who likes to be in control as much as I do (on occasion), having this out of my hands is surprisingly relaxing. I was getting close to going a little crazy with it all and had to keep reminding myself just a little longer and I'd be completely done. It's sort of like finishing up the final paper for the Spring semester, knowing you're doing a good job but so ready for summer to begin. This is something that has been hanging over my head for about a year, and only growing larger as time went on. But now I can't do anything. It isn't my responsibility and I've done what I could. Let's hope I get in somewhere.

Here's where I've applied:
University College of London - top choice

Queen Mary, University of London - sounds good, doesn't it?

King's College of London - Not bad sounding either, but for some reason not my top.

George Mason University - Mixed emotions about this, I wouldn't mind returning to my alma mater, and the education is, obviously a good one, but of course, London. I'd go here, but I'd rather go to London.
I have all these visions, based mostly on name association, for what these schools might be like. You wouldn't want to know. You'd be wondering why someone as obviously delusional and out of reality would even be applying to grad schools if you knew the pictures that pop in my head at the different names. For example, while addressing Queen Mary's envelopes I was very careful and formal, because I associate it with this pinchers on a narrow nose, tightly pulled-back, white haired English teacher, who will definitely be reading my application and questioning my dedication to the noble study of Literature. And she says it like "Lit-ter-a-tor" with a rolling of the tongue.
With King's College I was a little more relaxed. I said it wasn't my top college, even though the program seems fine. The website wasn't hugely impressive, and I'm pretty shallow. I also sort of associate Kings with a little easier going attitude than Queens named Mary. Kings seem only to be interested in hunting and playing chess in fine castles, they probably only funded a university because it looks good, keeps their name alive, and the people appreciate it. They probably think universities are musty and damp, full of shelves that reach endlessly into the sky.
University College of London--rational, humanistic, open-minded. Founded as the first public university, where anyone, of any religious background, could go (before you had to be of the Church of England) on the principles of a leading English philosopher,Jeremy Bentham, and located in Bloomsbury, home to the Bloomsbury Group. There is actually a research project on them right now. I really want to go there.
Oddly enough, all of these English colleges are under the UCL umbrella, sort of how the universities of California are all UC-Berkley, or UCLA. So I'm sure all of them would be fine, but those are just the associations I've made, based on rolling these names around in my head for the last year.
George Mason, well I've been there, no need to imagine it. But I would like to get my MA there, be close to friends, live with my sister, get a good education with professors I already like, and I could go to London when it's time to pursue my PhD.

To celebrate my newfound freetime I recklessly ignored my internal nagging need to always be doing something and watched this movie at work:

Which has a cheesy name but in German is Himmel uber Berlin or, Heaven Over Berlin. It is beautiful, and German, and sad, and sweet. If you want to see a shitty, watered down, completely unartistic, and therefore forced to be tepidly, predictably romantic you could watch the Nicholas Cage-Meg Ryan City of Angels. But don't waste your time. You won't see Nic Cage looking as cool as Bruno Ganz here:

Or nearly as artsy. It made me think of the Berlin I had just been to, except in black & white, back in the 80s and structured to be part of German existential film.