Wait, I'm a Senior Now?

A few days ago I  got a text message that said:
We're freaking seniors!!!!!!
And my visceral reaction was:
Wait, I'm a Senior now?
The hardest year of my life is over, and it feels weird to think about the fact that I'm not a junior anymore.
I feel so old.
I can't believe I'm almost done with my high school career. It's mind boggling to me, because it shows just how quickly I'll be entering the real world, a world where I actually attend a college instead of visiting them for a day, a world where I have to figure out what I want to do with my life, where I'm going to live after college.
And I know, I still have time to think about this, but jeez, this came quicker than I expected.
I remember the first day of fifth grade, and now look at me.
I'm a senior.
It's crazy isn't it?

Internship Days

It feels weird going back to school. Granted, I spent my internship on the sixth floor of my school building.
 But still.

I was acting.

And if there's one thing I learned in my internship it's that the acting is its own separate world.

It's a world where everyone is their own unique character, where people talk about contracting and expanding their life body, where the Meisner technique is used in everyday conversation.

And spending two weeks of my life immersed in the world of acting was eye opening.

When I was in that dance studio, saying my monologue, singing Amazing grace, or embodying a drunk flapper, the rest of the world didn't exist.

So maybe I don't want to become a renowned actor, and make it a career. But spending two weeks with my fellow interlocutors, and meeting people who were completely different but all shared a love for acting is something most people don't get to experience everyday.

And that experience is something I want to continue to enjoy on Friday, in Scotland, next year, and even in college.

Hey, you never know, maybe I will be an actor in ten years. 

PS. If I didn't make it clear, us Scotlanders are debuting our piece Grab the Land on Friday at five. Hope the dance studio is full,

Michelle

Be Uncommon. Change history.

Junior year started with a karabiner.

“You see these things,” our teachers asked. “They symbolize leadership.”

We have always been assumed the role of leaders, ever since that first handshake with Ms. Kennedy. We are, always have been, and always will be the pioneers of this school, which has provided us with the duty of being not only role models but also leaders.

But junior year has been different. Junior year has AP classes. Junior year has art and leadership class instead of theater and music.

Junior year is the year where college seemed to really become a reality, as we took the SAT for the first time, rewrote drafts of our college essays, and traveled to upstate New York in search of best-fit college. As we ventured off campus and into the real world for two weeks in our internships, doing big things.

And through all this, we remembered the first day of school, and the image of that karabiner, as we asked ourselves the question,

"Am I leading?”

We asked ourselves this question, as we spent breakfast lunch, and our time afterschool in APUSH independent study the week before the AP exam, as we wrote research papers on World War I propaganda, the cult of domesticity, and the Great Depression, as we read the entire American Pageant textbook.

And as the days before graduation dwindle, and the year comes to a close, we realize how much we have actually accomplished. Because throughout this year, we have been teaching ourselves to be intellectual leaders who are prepared for college. Individuals who are educated members of society, who advocate for the children of St. Jude’s Hospital, and for the education of children in impoverished areas. Young adults who can have an eloquent conversation on whether or not racism is in the DNA of America, or what the future of genetic engineering will bring to society.

Junior year has helped us live through the words,

“Be uncommon. Change History.”