That Is I Think I Disagree...

They say you learn something new every day. Like the difference between a grant and a scholarship, for example. Or learning that because there is a difference between a grant and a scholarship all the stress and fear that you may have been enduring for the past four days, more stress than you've actually ever felt in your life, was all for naught. So it goes. Pooteeweet.
Turns out that the train had never left the track. So why do I still feel derailed?
Maybe it's because of an entirely unexpected emotion, given the supposedly relieving news that my tenure at this fine university is not and never was in jeopardy: disappointment. That's right. My first instinctual reaction upon receiving the email from my adviser assuring me that there is no mention of a "scholarship" in my records and that grant money is completely untouched by recent events was bitter, resentful disappointment. The storm disappeared and I found myself back on solid ground, in sunny Southern California with long-board gangs and cruiser bicycles whizzing by over pathways inexplicably inlaid with brick and surrounded by flowers in ridiculous cardinal and gold arrangements, with fountains trickling peacefully and identical backpacked students chattering nonsense. I looked up at that florescent sun and that white-washed sky, at the trees planted at careful intervals, at the nameless statues and the scattered, retarded modern art, and all I could think was "This? You fought for this? To stay here? Here? Really?" And that one word has been repeating in my head like the sardonic ringing of a self-deprecating clock tower, it's hands somehow casting a shadow of delightful contempt on its features as it turns its face to me. Mocking. "Really?"
And so the choiceless choice is made. Fortunately or unfortunately, it's not the one I had been recently preparing for. I guess I'm still a USC student. Yes, really.