Goulash's luck

YOUR ENTIRE COLLEGE TUITION FROM THE LAST TWO YEARS HAS BEEN REFUNDED TO YOUR RESPECTIVE BANK ACCOUNT

These lines read across my laptop screen like a bull in a China shop. Shocking, super specific yet really cool for it to happen to you in real life. This can't be real I thought, I need to message student services at once.

"Is this real?"

"Yes"

"But why?"

"Check your junk folder"

For the first time in my life, I took the plunge into the land that time forgot or more commonly known the JUNK folder.

"Dear honorary students, one of our alma matter's Brendan Syffred, has donated his life fortune to wiping two years worth of University class fees from selected students, please look out for an email from Student Services. Additionally, just to confirm this email is real and not junk."

I sit shocked. Me. Amy Goulash, the curly headed, deathly pale and annoyingly sarcastic Big Bang Theory super fan has finally been chosen for something. But why? Why me, I wondered? Like a gazelle in the Sahara I leapt (took one medium length step) across my shoebox dorm to grab my phone. I call Samantha Pepper, my lab partner that called me a "nuisance to learning" for pipetting wrong in our biology experiment a week ago. I assume surely if I was chosen, she was too?

"Samantha, are you there, it's me Amy?"

"Why are you calling me outside of lab time?"

"I wondered if you had received one of those alma matter grants?"

"No, I wasn't chosen, and before you tell me you were, I'm hanging up."

For the second time in a fortnight, Samantha has insulted me. But it mattered not. I had bigger fish to fry.

Now diary, I'd like to point out in this part of the story, I'm excited of course, 20, 000 Smackaroos all for my taking. How will I spend it, you're wondering? You cheeky little leather bound diary. Well sure, I could pay off the rest of my remaining school fees and graduate debt free but what's the fun in that? I could go to Australia, but that prospect seems depressing with the amount of time I would need to spend avoiding third degree burns from the hole in their O-Zone layer. I decided, maybe if I figure out why I was chosen, that could give me the answer on how to spend my prize.

REASONS I COULD HAVE BEEN CHOSEN

- Mr Syffred wanted to encourage slightly above average students to do more with their education

- Mr Syffred thought of this money as more of a donation to finally get my bowling club off the ground.

- I happen to have a close relationship with the elderly librarian Doris, maybe she had mentioned to the school about my big plans to get a reverse-perm (Don't worry my sweet, little black book, I would never leave you in suspense, I can write in you about my hair plans tomorrow).

But anyway, after thinking over the many thousand reasons as to why I was chosen, I wanted it straight from the horse's mouth- Brendan Syffred.

Or if he did not answer the phone. I would have settled for a Facebook message to one of his distant family members.

I looked up the Syffreds on google, I clicked on a link for a digitalised early 2000's phonebook and voila! Knowing old, rich, white people, they would still live in their dust dungeon of an estate.

I rang the phone and sure enough...

"Hello, Mrs Syffred speaking."

"Hey Mrs Syffred, my name is Amy and I am a recipient of your husband's grants."

"Congratulations, but why are you calling?"

"Well I know this is a weird question, but do you know why he choose me?"

"I made him go down a list of current students and choose every second name."

"Oh, that's not what I expected."

"Okay, well, make good choices with it. Goodbye."

And so diary, it may have taken $20,000 to do it, but I finally liked my food-based Hungarian last name.

Oh and if you're wondering how I will actually spend my money, the internet told me to invest in Robin Hood, so I guess I will go to Costco and then load my parent's basement with bags of flour.

Speak to you tomorrow diary,

Sincerely Amy Goulash.