Applications of Doom, Chapter 1: In which I wonder, "What the heck ARE my professional goals anyway?!?"

Grad school applications. UGH. Although I realized that only one of them is due by Wednesday; the other two aren't due for two weeks and five weeks, respectively. But the one I am currently struggling to finish before Wednesday is being met with opposition in the form of writer's block. I've reached the essay stage...up until now it was easy enough. But now I have to answer the following prompt: "Describe your educational and professional goals and tell us your specific reasons for choosing to apply to (school) as you pursue these goals."

My first draft looked like this:

I WANT TO PLAY OBOE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. (SCHOOL) IS AWESOME.

I deleted that approximately 15 seconds after I hit the final period in the second sentence. In fact, I'm surprised it even lasted that long. FRUSTRATION.

Now, after writing a full 259 words in pursuit of answering the age-old question (simplified, obviously) "What do you want to be when you grow up," I am still at a loss. My essay doesn't really answer the question posed, and now I only have 241 words maximum to do so. Clearly, I'm procrastinating by blogging instead. It's much easier to speculate about the future when there isn't the threat of a room teeming with application evaluators breathing down my neck. Maybe that's an exaggeration. But still.

BUT STILL!

(You can't argue with that, right?)