back from LA! anna makes the final decision

well, as many of you know, I was accepted to USC and Arizona as an AZ resident and was having trouble deciding between the two. So my sister/roommate and I jumped in the car late Saturday morning and drove 9 hours to stay with a family friend in Calabasas (home of the group Incubus!) so we could check out LA and some options for housing. The next day I met with a grad student who had an apartment within walking distance of campus, but the apt. was adjacent to East LA (looked straight into it) and I saw a lot of suspicious looking people and homeless men and women wandering around the perimeter of the parking lot. Plus the girl seemed nice but kind of weird, and had a very skittish cat that hissed every time you got within 20 feet of it. I then drove up to Monterey Hills since some people on SDN had recommended it, but when my sister and I went into one of a cluster of buildings to inquire about openings; the guy at the front desk (who was Chinese, apparently there is a very large Asian population in Monterey Hills) told us rather coldly that there were no openings whatsoever and then looked at us suspiciously. I'm not sure what his problem was, but it really doesn't matter cause we moved on. I spent most of the next evening (except for a trip to Santa Monica pier) trying to get in touch with most of the people on the roommate list that Gena in Student Affairs had given me, and found that most people had found a roommate, decided to attend another school, or were now living with their sig. others. After spending 2 hours in the car trying to get to USC-LAC medical center on Monday morning to check it out (this is my own fault cause I got somewhat lost after missing the freeway interchange outside of Calabasas), I was really missing Tuscon, my family, and my former bf who moved back from Pheonix and will reapply this year (we are kind of trying to repair our relationship, long story). It may not be rational on my part, but I decided to save myself $100,000+, the expense of buying a new car, and the trouble of finding housing by choosing to attend The University of Arizona College of Medicine starting Monday. I went to the Admissions Office to inform them of my decision; they sent me into Dr. Erin Quinn's office. She was really nice about it, assured me that I would receive an excellent education at UA, and gave me a list of contacts in case I wanted to do an Away rotation during my 3rd or 4th year at USC-LAC hospital. I think I may do just that, as I would eventually like to practice on the West Coast (I think) (prob. Washington, Oregon, or Northern Cali though). In any case, we headed back out I-10 and I am now home and ready to begin medical school on Monday morning! I hope one of you gets my USC spot. I was really honored to be accepted there, and it is a great school with an excellent curriculum. I'm still a little sad that I had to turn them down. But UA has a lot of merits, too, you can work with lots of Spanish-speaking patients and do rotations in both Pheonix and Tucson. Good luck to those of you making a similar decision, sorry this is so long.

P.S. The only way I will not attend UA is if OHSU pulls me off the waitlist and offers me in-state tuition. I was also v. impressed by OHSU, but they told me the chances of me getting in and offered in-state tuition are very slim and this point. oh well.