Three weeks ago this Thursday, my friend Noah called our house. He asked to talk to my mom (who was our writing teacher last school year). As is my duty, I gave him a little bit of grief:

“Why are you calling mom? Why don’t you want to talk to me??“

Finally he said, “If you must know, I’m calling your mom to get an academic recommendation for my application to Gutenberg.”

“Aren’t you getting a bit of an early start?” (He had been planning on attending Fall 2007, just like me.)

“Actually, I’m getting a late start. I’m going this year.”

*My jaw hits the floor *

I spent the next five minutes exclaiming things like “ohmygosh you’re going to be in college and we won’t be in the same class and that sucks but oh well you’re going to be in college!! At Gutenberg!! This year!!”

But a funny thing happened, as I got more and more excited for Noah; An outrageously insane notion started to tickle me at the back of my mind—what if I could go this year, too? If Noah could apply this late in the year, why couldn’t I? And as I looked at my vague plan for this year—to take a class here and there at Lane Community College as my “senior” year—I realized how unsatisfied I had been with that vague plan and how certain I felt that starting Gutenberg this year would be a better one.

So, two and a half weeks, one application, and one acceptance letter later, that’s exactly what I am doing. I am going to college—this fall.

Those of you who know me may realize what an uncharacteristically spontaneous decision this is for me; but if it will help you understand at all, I want to let you know that I feel more certain about this decision than I have about any for a long time. I feel like God used Noah’s phone call and enthusiasm to wake me up to the fact that my plan for this year kind of sucked. And I am so glad that he did.

I imagine that you have all kinds of questions… Where will I live? What about photography and web design? Why Gutenberg? The answers are, respectively: At home, at least for the first quarter, although I plan to move down there at least by next year; photography and web design are important to me, but not as important as what Gutenberg has to offer; and… well, I think one of my application essays will answer that for you best:

(The question I was asked to answer was “What aspects of Gutenberg College have made you interested in attending?”)

When I was ten years old, I would have told you with great confidence that I wanted to attend Gutenberg College when I grew up. But I could not have given you a clear reason why I wanted to attend it. Gutenberg was simply synonymous with college in my mind. My dad taught there, my brother was going there—of course it was the best and only college to attend.

But that is not why I am applying to Gutenberg today. Today I am applying to Gutenberg because, over the last few years, I have gotten to know this school quite apart from my father or my brother. I have talked to its students; I have spent time in its halls; I have attended its graduations. I even spent two years in a program David Crabtree called “Gutenberg Jr.”—a taste of the Survey of Western Civilization. And everything I have heard and seen and experienced about Gutenberg has only made me more excited about attending.

I am excited to read the “great books” and to discuss them with classmates and tutors; I am excited to develop critical thinking and exegesis skills, and I am excited to learn Greek and to continue learning German. (I am even looking forward to math and science.) But one thing about Gutenberg attracts me more than any of the specifics of its curriculum: its tutors seem genuinely committed not only to helping their students succeed academically, but also to helping their students grow in wisdom and faith as they learn to examine their lives. I think this is a rare focus for a college to have.

When I was ten, I thought that I wanted to come to Gutenberg. Now I know that I do—not because my dad teaches there or because my brother went there, but because I have begun to discover for myself what a unique gem of a college it is. Gutenberg College provides an education that is so much more than a series of hoops through which to jump for a degree, and one which I believe can truly help me in my desire to gain perspective on the world around me.

I hope that will help you see the true regard in which I hold Gutenberg College. It is the only institution that I would be willing to recommend without ever having attended it. And I am thrilled, thrilled, to be starting there this year.

… There is one more question that I imagine a few of you may be curious about. What effect will all of this have on Lylium.org? The answer is… honestly, I don’t know. Well, one immediate effect it has had is that I have removed the “web design” page. I wish I didn’t have to, but I know I will be too busy to accept new jobs during the school year. And I really want to focus on school. The photography page is still up, for now, but it may change as well. We’ll see.

As far as writing in the blog is concerned… all I can say is that my first priority has to be getting my schoolwork done. But I will definitely still try to blog. Now, more than ever, I would like to keep a record of my thoughts and experiences during this time in my life.

Gutenberg orientation starts on Monday, September 18th: one week from today. One week from today I have to have fulfilled all of my prior commitments to web clients and other friends. One week from today I will be meeting my classmates—my fellow travellers through the four-year journey that is Gutenberg.

I have walked through Gutenberg’s front door countless times in my life—but one week from today I will be walking through its doors as a Freshman.

I can’t wait.

(This is what I hinted at in this post. Just in case anyone was wondering.)

One year ago today, I brought this beauty home:

Between then and now, it has…

… had its first snow…

… had its hood stolen (!) and then replaced…

… had its stereo’s faceplate stolen and not replaced (sigh)…

… and taken me on multiple road trips, carried me to and from work and school, and contributed a great deal to my growing feeling of independence.

For our anniversary, I gave it an old, half-broken tape deck/radio combo that Elijah took out of his car when he got a new CD player. It appreciates not driving in silence all the time anymore.

Thank you, car, for being the (fairly) reliable companion that you have been. Please don’t get stolen again.

(P.S. I still haven’t washed it. As in, not once since I got it a year ago. The Oregon rain kept it clean in the winter, I swear!)

Well well well! Check out this lovely slip of a thing that arrived in the mail today:

It is, indeed, the free iPod nano that came with my Macbook Pro. And, what’s this? Why, it seems to have been engraved with “Erin Michelle Julian – Lylium.org.” What a coincidence.

(This arrived several days earlier than I expected it… makes me think that my Macbook Pro may make its appearance sooner than anticipated!)

P.S. Speaking of coincidences… tonight I ran into one of my Flickr contacts, Erik R. Bishoff, at a grocery store! I have a number of people from Eugene on my contact list, so I figured it was bound to happen sooner or later… but still, it was a pretty fun coincidence.

… by typing “what cars can you steal with shaved keys” into Google:

The answer is,

NOT MINE.

’nuff said.

… Not really. But I did order a Macbook Pro!

After months of wondering and hinting, I finally bit the bullet.

But now I need your help. Yes, you—all you staunch Mac users out there, even if you have never commented on this site before or have just stumbled on it by accident. You see, this is my very first Mac of my own. And while, on the one hand, I am ridiculously excited about it, on the other hand there is a small part of me that is beginning to have a panic attack because this is where the rubber meets the road.

I’ve been trying to convince myself and my parents and my friends for ages that I want a Mac, that I need a Mac, that I cannot possibly be happy and fulfilled in my computing life without a Mac! So naturally, now that I’ve hit that “Place Order” button and watched all of my money fly out the window, I’m apprehensive; my worst fear is that it will arrive and it will be gorgeous and I will open it up and turn it on and it will be SO PRETTY and then I will go… “Now what?”

So this is where you come in. The Macbook Pro is scheduled to arrive around September 12th, which is, coincidentally, my birthday. Before then, I need to harness your collective Mac wisdom. I need to know what to do and setup and download to feel at home in my new computer. I want to know it inside and out. What are the apps or widgets that you can’t live without? What are some of the most fun and useful features built into OS X that I may not know about? How do you even use OS X, anyway?

I am not a novice computer user, by any means. I am not even completely clueless about Macs, as I have been reading The Unofficial Apple Weblog and other Mac-related blogs for quite some time. But I would really love some tips and instructions to make my transition from Windows to Mac as smooth as possible. Thank you in advance!

P.S. Because we qualify for the educational discount from Apple, I was also able to get a free 2 GB iPod Nano with my laptop! That is pretty exciting too, as I have never owned an iPod.

P.P.S. That Macbook Pro graphic up there is Apple’s, not mine. It belongs to Apple. Apple has the rights to it. Therefore Apple would be within its rights to come hunt me down and shoot me for using its graphic on my website. Don’t do it, Apple, it’s free advertising!