What to do...

I spent this past weekend doing what else but... looking for/at colleges... again.  What a fun and exciting process that simply makes me want to tear my hair out!  It's not enough for me to have to sift through thousands of names of institution of higher education on databases, hoping I haven't overlooked anything.  From there, I have to see how expensive each one is, how selective it is, what my chances are of getting in, location, size, student comments, etc.  No, in addition to that, my parents have thrown a few more monkeywrenches into the equation (which already is of gigantic proportions! >:O ).  Earlier this month, my parents proposed to me the idea of attending a two year college to finish X-ray tech school (like my mom), and then, since I like brains so much, I should then go on to get a graduate degree in MRI-ing (and also going to community college and moving to UConn in my junior year.  [No comment])  

Here's where my problem lies.  I am a diligent little researcher, and I have easily found that an MRI tech makes a steady (and larger) income as compared to an English major.  So I figured, I can write the Next Great American Novel in my spare time, while comfortably living with my parents while I put several thousand dollars in my bank account in order to buy myself a better life later.  It sounded good (and I know this because my mom's fellow schoolmate who is almost twenty  years my mom's junior is living the same life, though she's not a "writer").  Then I thought, wait, I would be missing out on everything I've been feed about college since I moved to America.  But go to a real university, major in English, and who knows, become a technical writer (while I write the NGAM at home), will greatly depleat my parents' wallets and hurt the future of my own before I am able to pay off any debts.

So, I'm stuck in a place where I have no more information to go on, and I can't make an educated guess.  Or an educated decision.  The life of a college student has certain appeal, but because at seventeen, I have to decide the general direction of what I really want to do with the rest of my life, I don't know what to do.  Maybe I should skip the parties and get a steady job that would support my creative endeavors?  Who knows, maybe I'll move to Boston, and maybe there'll be time to attend art school to study fashion.  Then I can work for like, RL or Tommy or something.

Anyone else frustrated by the system we've been placed in?!