The Sound of Music

Since I do not wish to take the time to check my analog wristwatch for the time, I will go by my phone's [potentially more accurate] estimate that I have two hours and 17 minutes til I turn 17.

In the larger scheme of my life, 17 does not seem monumental. It lacks the saccharinity [that's a word! Well Safari doesn't mark it as misspelled!] of 16, and the scary legality of 18. I can legally do magic outside of school, but not much else.

In reality, though, 17 is pretty damn important. It's my last birthday in high school. My last birthday among all the friends I've grown up with– well, since fifth grade. I am sadly not really in touch with anyone from Culver, save on Facebook, which really doesn't count but enables them to read this should they choose to do so. What's up?!

18 has this sense of being the first nail in your coffin, even though you're still young and in college [most likely. In high school, actually, for most people]. Sixteen is the perfect age to capture youth. 17 just middles along, not young, not old. Like Britney Spears in "Crossroads!" I think.

There were certain things I wanted to accomplish before my seventeenth birthday, and it didn't really work out. However, they were rather trivial, so it's not too horrid. Maybe I can just knock 'em out by the end of the actual year.

Senior year will probably be one of the more memorable years of my life and I'll be 17 for the duration of it. I had more to say, but now I'm blanking. This is what old age gets you!

I'm young though!

I think my biggest regret this year was failing to see "The Sound of Music" once.

I am 16, going on 17...

Where did our love go?

Hello. Hello!

Love=blog...by the way.

Personal post time! Senior year is different. The work isn't harder, it isn't easier, either, but there's this big, sharp, shiny axe swinging over our heads like one of those oh-so-easily escapable scenes from a James Bond movie. In less than a month, early apps are due. In less than two months, state university apps are due. In three months or so, everything else is due. This is serious business. We can't just bullshit our way to an A, this is college! This is madness. But we haven't gone Spartan. Yet.

Ooh, every time I come up with what would be a killer ending line, like the last one, I have more to say.

My desk is buried under envelopes and flyers and brochures and postcards and..nail clippers. The last thing aside, the whole college thing is chomping down on my life.

I go to sleep. Dream. I get into my top school! Wake up deliriously happy and then...crash. Nope. I go to sleep. Dream. I get rejected from my top school! And a lot of other places. Wake up in despair, gasping and then...oh. Still too early for that one.

What happened to dreams of archeological digs and underground treasure hunts, etcetera. They were a bit random, but they were cool! This current situation is rather annoying.

And then! The college essay thing. Or rather, the [37] college essay[s] thing. Everything is viewed through that lens. "Ooh, this lisptick doesn't match my eyebrows! Could I possibly extrapolate this into some symbolic brilliant essay?" or "Ooh, I brushed my teeth! Let's examine these intricacies" or "Ooh I met Al Gore in third grade at Samy's Camera. Story time!" I'm not dragging on anyone's potential essay. Some people have the gift of taking something mundane or seemingly insignificant and transforming it into brilliance. I, for one, need to be in a strange mood at a strange time to write well without wanting to tear my hair out. I don't know what my final essay[s] will definitely be on. I may need to bite my tongue.

The other thing is, it is extremely inconvenient to have a birthday in October this year. Or at least, it is extremely inconvenient to have a birthday in October this year if you are me.

This is my last birthday in high school [it's on Tuesday if you, ahem, were wondering] and though I am only turning 17, NOT 18, I wanted it to be special! I wanted to have a proper, return-to-somehow-epic "party" [I use that term in the loosest sense] with a guest list that would read something like "eh forget it, let's just invite 'em." But. My lack of prior planning has led to absolutely zero plans, two days away from my actual birthday. And all the Saturdays this month are wonky. Plus, everyone's frantically trying to finish their early apps. Boohoo.

In retrospect, this post seems like one looooong whiiiiine. But do not interpret it so! This is just a not-so-soothing meditation on the process. I'm excited for the future. Browsing websites for programs is actually really fun, because if I get in, I have a loooot to look forward to. Just realized that could be read as "loot." Ha.

The bit about my birthday might have been whining, though.