All The Rules Change

This is the final term of my high school career. It's basically the last term of the easiest part of my life. From now on, everything will be harder. The future will bring on new a greater resposibilities, and I'm scared shitless. I'm excited to be done, and finally move on with my life, but there's always that part of me that will want to stay home. I don't wanna leave my home, where my parents watch over me and basically care to my every need. I don't have to do my own laundry (most of the time), I don't have to pay bills, I don't have to worry about if we have enough food. Any of that. But soon enough, I will have to start worrying about that.

My Economics teacher Mr. Grady, gave us a big speech during our first day of class. He stressed how important his class was, and how it will help us in the future. The main point he stressed was, all the rules change. After high school, all of the rules change. No one is going to be along side us guiding us through college and during our job. All of the responsibility to make it through school, up to this point, was on the shoulders of our teachers. In college and in the work force, that all changes. The responsibility is on us now. No one cares if we go to class, teachers won't care if you fail. You're paying for your college tuition, so if you don't go to class, that's wasted money out of your pocket. It's kind of mind boggling if you think about it, because at this point, we're adults now.

I thought at first, it can't be that big of a change. We're just moving on to a different level of education. Yes, that is true, but it's to a whole new degree. We have more freedom in college, more freedom that we can choose what we do with. Either we can spend our freedom badly, by partying every night and being dumb. Or we can do what is expected, and do our homework and studies first. I plan to hopefully do a little of both. Of course my number one priority will be school, and if I do have some free time, I'd like to have some fun once and a while.

College will be a hard time, and it will be hard for me to get used to at first. But overall I think it'll be fun and a great experience for me, and everyone else. It's what gets us to the next level -- the rest of our lives. College helps build our future, and it can be fun. I'm anxious to see how it all pans out [<3]

Song of the Day -- Summer Sunshine

I'm starting to think winter should be done right abouuttt... Now. I'm getting sick of all this nasty snow and slush all over, getting my car all dirty. Even though this song is pretty old, I heard it for the first time during the summer a couple years ago. This and other songs remind me of the warm summer nights, hanging out with my friends and just having a good time. I'm a senior this year, so I'm going to have a longer summer than years before. Before I go away to college, I want to have the summer of a lifetime. I want to hang out with my friends and boyfriend, and create memories that'll last forever. There's obviously no gurantees to that, but I'm pretty sure it'll happen.

The past summers I have are probably some of the most memorable moments in my life. Even though some of the moments aren't good ones, I still remember so much of what has happened the past few years. This summer will be great too. I've made new friends, actually have a boyfriend to spend time with, and I have my full license (long story). I'm hoping my parents will let up on the rules a little bit this summer, since it'll be my last one in high school. One of my favorite things to do in summer is lay on my driveway at night and look at all the stars. My house is perfect for this because we live out in the country, sort of. I sit out there and think about a lot of things.. Sometimes I think about if there are other people somewhere in the world looking at the same stars I am. There's so many different worlds and people out there that I don't know about, and it's crazy to think about what all I'm missing out on.

I think I do some of my deepest thinking in the summer too. I always reflect on the past year, and think about what is coming in the future. This summer I'll have a lot to think about, with college coming up. It's going to be hard to leave my friends, most of who are staying here in CR. It's also going to be a tough decision figuring out what Elliott and I are going to do. I've been avoiding as much as I can, but sooner or later we are going to have to sit down and talk about what we are going to do about our relationship in the future. As much as I hate to think about it, I'm going to be 2 hours away at college while he's here still in high school. We're going to have to think about if we can stick together, and work through this long distance relationship, and know we can trust each other. If we can't we're going to have to split up, knowing that our decision is for the best. Lately we've been hinting at the subject, and I think we are probably going to salvage our relationship and stand the distance. Although this can change over the next few months, I'm hoping it doesn't. This summer will be interesting. [<3]

Decisions

The farther along senior year goes, the more decisions I have been having to make. Everyone my age is experiencing this same thing as well. I've been thinking about college and what I'd like to do in the future since about sophomore year, and as time goes on, the pressure keeps building and building. There are so many things I have to consider when looking at colleges, and when deciding where to apply.

The colleges I applied to are only Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. I felt these two colleges had what I am looking for. I visit Mount Mercy as well, but their campus and majors didn't interest me as much as the other schools. During this past summer, before I applied, I visited ISU before UNI. I stayed at the schools during the past few summers for volleyball camps, but this was my first ever college visit, so I didn't know what to expect. I was really nervous, because I thought I would stick out like a sore thumb. The more I thought about it, duh I'm not going to be the only one visiting, and the kids are gonna be just as nervous as I am. As we arrived I looked around at the campus. I was scared because it seemed like it was never ending. This scared me a little. Once I got there, we signed in at a huge building and waited to take a tour with a dozen other applicants and their parents. As we broke off from the tour group, my parents took me around and showed me other places. I thought to myself, this campus isn't that big, I don't think it'd be too bad. When I got home I saw a map and realized we were only walking in about 1/4 of the campus. Once again I was back to being intimidated by the big campus.

My visit at UNI went a lot better. I love their campus because it's a lot smaller, and suits me well. I like the campus a lot, because it's pretty open but still small. Unfortunately though, ISU has the better academic program for what I want to major in: Interior or Architectural Design. So basically if I want a good, solid career, I need to go to Iowa State.

The decision now is if I want to stay in CR for a year and get some of my Gen Eds taken care of while at home, and then go to Iowa State for the rest of college, or if I want to just go straight to Iowa State. My parents say they are behind me whichever one I choose, but I think they really want me to just leave and get out there and go to Iowa State without any hesitations. I personally really want to stay home for another year, because most of my friends are staying here for at least a year or two before they leave the city. I hate to admit it, but Elliott does have an influence on where I go. If we stay together, I'd really like to be here another year with him. Of course my parents don't like the idea of that. It's really going to be a hard decision when I have to actually sit down with my parents and decide.