It's Killing Me

So I'm freaking out here.
My friends are calling me, saying, "Oh my god I got my AP scores in the mail!! What did you get?"
And what do I respond with?
"....I didn't get my scores yet."
And I've been trying to be patient, thinking maybe it's just because Far Rockaway is extremely far away from everywhere else (I mean it's in the name), but this is just getting ridiculous. It's been days now, and I don't even get an email. Where's the courtesy?
Let me just say, I read hundreds of pages on American history, made countless flashcards on biological processes that I could barely pronounce the names of, wrote either a document based or free response essay almost every Friday of every week  for a year, and sacrificed precious sleep in the morning to go to Independent study.
Don't I deserve to know my scores? Don't I deserve to have my anxiety quelled as I  sit here and wonder? Don't I deserve to be able to gloat like everyone else instead  of saying, "...I didn't get my scores yet"? For god sakes, my handwriting was the neatest it has ever been in my entire life in those history essays.
Have mercy College Board.

I'm Not a Bragger

I don't like to brag about myself.

It's weird right? I can hear myself in my head and can't help but  think, jeez shut up will you?  So I usually refrain from bragging, unless I have to.

And when do I have to?

When I'm writing a college essay.

If you didn't already know, writing a college essay means you basically have to sell yourself without making it obvious, in less than six hundred words, to someone who knows nothing about you but your name and and your GPA, which they got off of your transcript by the way. 

How can I tell you everything about myself in less than 500 words?
How can I tell you that my name is Michelle Elisabeth Soto, that I'm obsessed with Indie rock, that I want to move Chicago and own a studio apartment, that my favorite food is my mother's rice beans and chicken, that my new past time is spending hours making abstract paintings, that I narrate my life in my mind like a blog just like the main character of the show Awkward, that I'm a hopeless romantic and cry when I watch movies like The Notebook and The Time Traveler's Wife, that exposing every part of myself on stage is simultaneously  the most terrifying and most addictive thing I've ever done?
I mean, can't I just give them the link to this blog post?
That would be much easier than fitting 16 years of experiences, growth, and epiphanies onto one page of words.
Maybe I can use a smaller font than size twelve.

I'm a Changed Person

After flying across the ocean and spending nine days in Scotland, I feel...older. Wiser.
It was exhilarating, going to a place full of rolling hills, and meeting people who seem worlds apart, but love indie rock as much as I do.
It's almost overwhelming, being exposed to a place that initially seems almost opposite of mine; different accents, food, steering wheels of cars on the right side instead of the left.
It blew my mind.
But I've never felt so alive.
I've never felt so out of my element.
I mean I've been to camp, gone places where I've known absolutely no one. but that's not the same.
I've never had the realization that the world is much larger than New York City.
Until now.
There's a whole other world out there, a whole world that I have yet to explore.
I made so many memories from Scotland that i can't help but want to go back, and make so many more, to plan to explore other countries and cultures in the future.
I'm a changed person.

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.