Season 1, Episode 4: Schooled
Shocker of the hour- school started.
Seeing as I'm in high school, this isn't exactly a huge revelation, but it still came as a bit of a shock to me. You see, this year is my senior year, and now that I'm thinking about it, it's a little bit scary. I've always been a rather spontaneous person, but when it comes down to the line, I like having plans, if for nothing else than backup.
But I feel like I don't have one.
I know what I want to study, in theory; I know, ideally, a few places that would be fantastic locations for me to study; but the problem is clear to me: acceptance.
As some of you may know, my number one choice of major is called "Popular Music" and it's rather rare (it's only offered by about 9 schools internationally), which means, by default, it's also very competitive. Again, those of you who know me well know that I'm also very competitive, but this... well, this is a realm all its own.
At the beginning of the year, I was really stressed out about this, I'm not going to lie. I mean, I was applying to about 20 colleges for 7 different majors- spanning from Popular Music to Social Studies Education to Criminology and Law- so just the pressure of having to fill out the application forms was getting to me, but then school started and where I thought I had been so far ahead, now I felt as if I was slipping behind.
To be honest, I'm still terrified about it. One of my main goals in life is to go to school outside of Illinois, because as much as it's cute and I love it here, I have too much of a spirit of adventure to stay here forever.
And hypothetically, that should be achievable.
I have good enough grades to get into plenty of schools, and I should hope that some of my teachers found me to be a pleasant enough student to the point where they would write me at least a semi-decent recommendation.
But this is where some casual anxiety kicks in. Well, it whispers, You know, you didn't have an "A" all the way through the year in AP Lang... I bet your teacher will refuse to write you a recommendation...You'll probably forget some mandatory part of the application...
And so on. And, the problem is, I'm just disorganized enough to be able to believe some of that. I know that I'm not necessarily on top of the whole application process, and I'm absolutely terrified that I'm going to submit the Common App and forget to write an essay, or submit my teacher recommendation letters, or my transcript, or something else essential to my admittance.
As much as staying here in Illinois isn't nearly the worst thing that could happen to me, I would be absolutely crushed if my non-admittance was because of a careless error or oversight on my part.
But there's a silver lining in those clouds for me- not only did I find out this weekend that the universities that I had applied to in the UK were excited to receive my musical audition, I also completed my first official college application (to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, if anyone was wondering)
In other news, this is my Senior Year.
It's really strange to be the oldest ones again. I vaguely remember feeling really cool in 8th grade when I was in the oldest group, and now I just feel... strangely old.
But regarding senior year.
1) I made a list during my freshman yea of 10 things I wanted to do before I graduated. I currently have 1.5 of them left.
2) I've decided to make this year my year, even if everything doesn't go my way.
We talked at church last month about leaving a legacy in all of the places that you go, and I've been thinking about that a lot. I've even had a few comments on it, made in fleeting conversations, but that impacted me greatly. One girl told me that I was a legend at our high school, and I responded with "me? no.. why?" and she explained that I had been in the talent show all four years of high school, and I had won it as a Sophomore with an original song, and that it was just unheard of... And then I thought about it. I remember saying to myself, "Hm.. that's nice, I guess. But am I really a legend?"
But then I had a couple of other girls make comments about my personality- girls from my cross country team, mainly. A group of underclassmen who really appreciated that I said "Hello" to them in the halls, and when they started telling me that I made them feel loved, and that I made their day, I'll admit, I was floored. In my eyes, I was extending a small bit of kindness to these adorable freshmen and sophomores, and in theirs, I was showing them how much I cared. It really made me think about my interactions with everyone, and whether or not my actions were/are reflecting the God that I'm representing.
That's the other thing that I've realized this year. As most of my classes center in the Fine Arts wing of our high school, I'm repeatedly forced to interact with many underclassmen, rather than my usual close friends in my own grade. These admittedly more awkward interactions have reminded me of my first few years at the school, when practically everyone was older than me, and I just wanted to be that pretty senior when I got to my senior year.
But now that the time has come, I don't exactly feel exceptionally wiser or smarter or prettier, I just feel like me, which means a pretty equal division of awkward puns, animal noises, and too-frequent giggles.
And yet, somehow, I'm that girl. I might not be the "it" girl, or the cool girl, or the most popular, but I'm certainly aware that I'm being watched.
So I try to be nice, and I try to stay positive all the time, and I try to encourage participation, and to encourage the #lznation spirit, but I'm only human, and that means I'll make mistakes. Some days I won't be in the best of moods, and I won't want to talk to all of the sophomores in my photography class, but what's more important that what I'd prefer is to make sure that I'm still treating those around me with common courtesy. As an ambassador of Christ, and as a decent human being, I can't just go around treating other people like crap. I've had to make a lot of conscious decisions this year to think about what I'm about to say or to consider the way I'd feel if someone talked about me behind my back. As much as I may want to fall victim to the pettiness of gossip and rumors that are so contagious to girls my age, I've been focusing on the intended reaction of my actions...if that makes much sense. It's like how they tell us in my AP English class that we can't assume that all readers will react in the same way, and so when we analyse literature, we can only claim what the author intended for people to feel.
That's what I'm trying to do. As Proverbs 27:17 says "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another". I don't want to dull down someone's personality, creativity, or excitement because of my stress level, or a bad mood, or out of annoyance. I want to strive to be better than that, and to truly be a leader among my peers. I hope you'll consider joining me, or at least keeping me accountable.
Now, due to this novel of a post, you get some casual pictures. :)
Signing off,
Amanda.
Seeing as I'm in high school, this isn't exactly a huge revelation, but it still came as a bit of a shock to me. You see, this year is my senior year, and now that I'm thinking about it, it's a little bit scary. I've always been a rather spontaneous person, but when it comes down to the line, I like having plans, if for nothing else than backup.
But I feel like I don't have one.
I know what I want to study, in theory; I know, ideally, a few places that would be fantastic locations for me to study; but the problem is clear to me: acceptance.
As some of you may know, my number one choice of major is called "Popular Music" and it's rather rare (it's only offered by about 9 schools internationally), which means, by default, it's also very competitive. Again, those of you who know me well know that I'm also very competitive, but this... well, this is a realm all its own.
At the beginning of the year, I was really stressed out about this, I'm not going to lie. I mean, I was applying to about 20 colleges for 7 different majors- spanning from Popular Music to Social Studies Education to Criminology and Law- so just the pressure of having to fill out the application forms was getting to me, but then school started and where I thought I had been so far ahead, now I felt as if I was slipping behind.
To be honest, I'm still terrified about it. One of my main goals in life is to go to school outside of Illinois, because as much as it's cute and I love it here, I have too much of a spirit of adventure to stay here forever.
And hypothetically, that should be achievable.
I have good enough grades to get into plenty of schools, and I should hope that some of my teachers found me to be a pleasant enough student to the point where they would write me at least a semi-decent recommendation.
But this is where some casual anxiety kicks in. Well, it whispers, You know, you didn't have an "A" all the way through the year in AP Lang... I bet your teacher will refuse to write you a recommendation...You'll probably forget some mandatory part of the application...
And so on. And, the problem is, I'm just disorganized enough to be able to believe some of that. I know that I'm not necessarily on top of the whole application process, and I'm absolutely terrified that I'm going to submit the Common App and forget to write an essay, or submit my teacher recommendation letters, or my transcript, or something else essential to my admittance.
As much as staying here in Illinois isn't nearly the worst thing that could happen to me, I would be absolutely crushed if my non-admittance was because of a careless error or oversight on my part.
But there's a silver lining in those clouds for me- not only did I find out this weekend that the universities that I had applied to in the UK were excited to receive my musical audition, I also completed my first official college application (to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, if anyone was wondering)
In other news, this is my Senior Year.
It's really strange to be the oldest ones again. I vaguely remember feeling really cool in 8th grade when I was in the oldest group, and now I just feel... strangely old.
But regarding senior year.
1) I made a list during my freshman yea of 10 things I wanted to do before I graduated. I currently have 1.5 of them left.
2) I've decided to make this year my year, even if everything doesn't go my way.
We talked at church last month about leaving a legacy in all of the places that you go, and I've been thinking about that a lot. I've even had a few comments on it, made in fleeting conversations, but that impacted me greatly. One girl told me that I was a legend at our high school, and I responded with "me? no.. why?" and she explained that I had been in the talent show all four years of high school, and I had won it as a Sophomore with an original song, and that it was just unheard of... And then I thought about it. I remember saying to myself, "Hm.. that's nice, I guess. But am I really a legend?"
But then I had a couple of other girls make comments about my personality- girls from my cross country team, mainly. A group of underclassmen who really appreciated that I said "Hello" to them in the halls, and when they started telling me that I made them feel loved, and that I made their day, I'll admit, I was floored. In my eyes, I was extending a small bit of kindness to these adorable freshmen and sophomores, and in theirs, I was showing them how much I cared. It really made me think about my interactions with everyone, and whether or not my actions were/are reflecting the God that I'm representing.
That's the other thing that I've realized this year. As most of my classes center in the Fine Arts wing of our high school, I'm repeatedly forced to interact with many underclassmen, rather than my usual close friends in my own grade. These admittedly more awkward interactions have reminded me of my first few years at the school, when practically everyone was older than me, and I just wanted to be that pretty senior when I got to my senior year.
But now that the time has come, I don't exactly feel exceptionally wiser or smarter or prettier, I just feel like me, which means a pretty equal division of awkward puns, animal noises, and too-frequent giggles.
And yet, somehow, I'm that girl. I might not be the "it" girl, or the cool girl, or the most popular, but I'm certainly aware that I'm being watched.
So I try to be nice, and I try to stay positive all the time, and I try to encourage participation, and to encourage the #lznation spirit, but I'm only human, and that means I'll make mistakes. Some days I won't be in the best of moods, and I won't want to talk to all of the sophomores in my photography class, but what's more important that what I'd prefer is to make sure that I'm still treating those around me with common courtesy. As an ambassador of Christ, and as a decent human being, I can't just go around treating other people like crap. I've had to make a lot of conscious decisions this year to think about what I'm about to say or to consider the way I'd feel if someone talked about me behind my back. As much as I may want to fall victim to the pettiness of gossip and rumors that are so contagious to girls my age, I've been focusing on the intended reaction of my actions...if that makes much sense. It's like how they tell us in my AP English class that we can't assume that all readers will react in the same way, and so when we analyse literature, we can only claim what the author intended for people to feel.
That's what I'm trying to do. As Proverbs 27:17 says "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another". I don't want to dull down someone's personality, creativity, or excitement because of my stress level, or a bad mood, or out of annoyance. I want to strive to be better than that, and to truly be a leader among my peers. I hope you'll consider joining me, or at least keeping me accountable.
Now, due to this novel of a post, you get some casual pictures. :)
Signing off,
Amanda.
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| "Always bring a banana to a party" (ft. my sister's sweatshirt, my red lipstick, and doctor who for days) |
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| One of my favorite senior pictures of me :) |
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| Me trying to pretend that I'm not a hooligan (plot twist: I am) |
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| Probably the most artsy photo of myself that I've ever taken. |
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| I would've looked lovely in this photo, had I not been making a weird face... |
I love you <3
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