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.”

Day One

Now if some of you were missing the juniors in school today (which I know you were ), you may have noticed that they weren't school today, and won't be for the next two weeks.
But if you're lucky, you may see  a junior walking up the stairs to the sixth floor.
And if you're wondering what we're doing, we're creating a piece of theater for our trip to Scotland, and we're affectionately known as the Scotland group.
And today was day one of creating our piece of theater.
No I can't say much, and you guys are pretty much going to have to wait till we perform on June 8th.
But  I will say, that beginning of the process of making monologues, and writing two paged scenes on the infrastructure of America has been a unique and exciting challenge.
So the Scotland group has a great start, and I hope that all juniors enjoyed Day One of their internships.
Until next time.

We're Not Done Yet

They say that your high school career never gets harder than the end of junior year. 

I don't whether or not to be relieved or terrified.

Maybe it's safe to be both.

All I know is that I could have sworn that this Monday was the last day of school, because that AP bio test was one of the hardest tests  I took in my entire life.

So hard, in fact, that I had this sudden and burning urge to go home afterwards and immediately start my summer.

But no. AP Bio students trudged downstairs to lunch, through the rest of the day, and the rest of the days left in the week. 

Ad that's when i realized:

We're not done yet. 

It feels like it, but we still have so much left to accomplish this year.

We have a research paper due, internships, the June SAT and SAT II's, Regents exams, finals, AND THEN the end of the year.

So as much as all of us feel like we've never studied as much in our lives as we did for AP exams, and that junior year can't get anymore stressful than that, let's remember:

We're not done yet. 

I Almost forgot I had a blog

Wow talk about ages. How long has it been?  mean, a few people have come up to me in the last few weeks, wondering about my blog but that seems like ancient history now.
Last time I wrote on here I was talking about hair or something. I don't even remember.
It' fourth quarter now. The spring musical came and went, along with the end of quarter three. now I'm drafting a research paper about war propaganda in World war I, and  getting ready for AP exams. Not to mention Internships almost around the corner. Before I know it, I'll be in Scotland.
And it doesn't feel like it.
I still remember the first day, with the speech on leadership, when I met my teachers and marveled at the fact the I was in two AP classes.
Now look at me.A Sunior, getting ready to take the SAT for a second time, making my college list n collegiate prep, hearing about all the classes we'll have next year.
Needless to say, I've been extremely busy, working harder than I've had to work in my whole life. At least that's how it feels.
I'm just glad I remembered that I have my blog, because my life seems to be going faster than the words that I'm typing right now., and trust me, I don't want to miss a thing.

It's just hair.

That's what my dad told me today when I was on the verge of pure outrage as I looked at the disaster called my hair in the mirror, and tried to explain to him these passed two days have been the ugliest my hair has looked in years.

And as I said this, my dad listened calmly, and said:

It's just hair.

And he proceeded in explaining that he understood exactly how I felt .

You have an image in your head of what your hair should look like, but for some reason there''s one piece of hair that sticks out. Or your bangs grew to long on one side, and your hair curls at the ends even after three hours of using your instyler.

And you're like, WHY?!

Hearing my dad speak these words made me feel like, yeah, I'm not the only person that wants to rip their hair out from the roots because of bad hair days.

And it made me think about being a junior in UCHS, but not just a junior, one of the first juniors of UCHS, with no seniors to look up to.

I mean, there's tons of upperclassman that can give me advice, but you have to ask yourself; will they truly understand your experience?

And this, in my opinion, is the biggest disadvantage of bieng in the first class. I have no one to say, yeah, I struggled in Ms. Lehnert's AP bio class last year too. This is what I did. Or, yeah, I remember those APUSH notes, they're torture if you leave them for the night before.

But I don't have that. and every once in a while, I wish I did.

Sometimes I wish I could just write for the newspaper that's already been created, instead of having to start it from almost nothing , so I could know how it feels to have an editor, instead of being one.Sometimes, I wish we could have kids who went to our school come back from college and talk to us about their UCHS days.

And maybe that 's why I can't wait to come back to UCHS. When I'm at University of Rochester, or Syracuse, sit on that stage in the cafetorium, and recount stories about my freshman days, and my first SAT mock test.

Because I want to make sure the students below me understand that even though our school is uncommon, they're not the only ones who experience UCHS.

I want to be able to come back and say, I was right where you are, and even though you're up to your necks in stress and pressure, it is possible, because I did it.