So, I've finally made my decision.

I'm going to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

You should really wikipedia this school because it is, in my firm opinion, the shit. It eats the School of Visual Arts for breakfast.

YA HEAR THAT SVA?! I DON'T NEED YOU! HAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah, so SAIC is awesome. It's got the largest collection of art books in the country, its archives include pages from Leonardo DaVinci's sketchbooks, it shares a hallway with the Art Institute of Chicago museum, so the air that circulates in the school has to be clean enough to meet museum standards. It has a foundry on campus, plenty of open space, separate wet and dry studios for students to use, little kitchenettes in the dorm rooms, circular windows, and a killer art history program. Physically speaking, it's not that attractive. Really, really gray. But, hot damn! It's called the "Harvard of art schools."

And I. Fucking. Love. It.

Yes, New York City is cooler than Chicago. Not going to lie. But the school is so flantastically excilantro that I don't really care. There's a thai restaurant nearby, plenty of public transportation, good shopping right outside my dorm, and it snows. Yeah, snows. Like when rain freezes and accumulates on the ground.

[SOME people, who already live in cold climates will not be impressed with that fact. But I, personally, have not seen a solid snowstorm in... eighteen years. Yeah]

I looked into MCAD, but I took that tour the day after I took the SAIC tour. Couldn't compare. At all. Sorry MCAD. You're really cute, but SAIC is so badass it doesn't even matter that you have a comic book program. That's nice but... museum air! Come on!

That's all. I have to gush over that school the way I have to gush over baklava, Mr. MacLean, "Everything Is Illuminated," Gogol Bordello, and Goya. It's just right up there with the best things in the world. I can move in August 23rd. In the mean time, I'll be working at--sobsobsob--Taco Bell to make sure I have enough money for food throughout the hard, Chicago winters. When it will snow.

Yes, snow. In Chicago.