at the end of the day

Hey all, or at least to whoever is actually reading this.

This is my first post in more than a month, which is a pretty good indication of how hectic my life has been and how low this blog is on my priority list. I would apologize, but I don't think I have enough readers to apologize to, so ha. I can do whatever I want, yo.

(I was also planning on a September Favorites, but it's like halfway through October, so I'll just lump everything together and make a huge favorites post in November.)

Anyways, yeah. With September came the realization that my life is slowly ending. And by life, I mean that sweet blissful period of time called childhood, when you really do have nothing more to worry about except school and homework and activities and trying to let puberty do its job.

That life is now officially over. I will, of course, be announcing its official end multiple times in the course of the next year, what with all of the "landmarks" coming up (end of college apps season, college decisions, graduation, eighteenth birthday, actual entrance of college, 1 month anniversary of living by myself and not dying), but it feels weird doing it for the first time.

Why was September more eventful than any other month? For one thing, my college apps began and my ACT was this month. School also started to hit the ground running, as well as my extracurriculars, and I gotta tell you, balancing all of that and sleep has been really exhausting.

I ended up doing really well on my ACT, so woohoo! I've been maintaining my grades at school (except for AP Economics lol), I think I'm pretty up to par with my extracurriculars (although I am super behind on one deadline), and I just finished my SAT II Subject Tests today (Literature, which I'm sure I rocked).

So all in all, not that bad, I guess. I mean, I do feel like I shaved off five years of my life with all of the sleep deprivation, but the results were worth it, so there's that.

I don't know if you can tell from this post, but my social life has been pretty much dead for this entire month. I barely see my friends who don't have similar schedules to me, which is really upsetting because I value some of these friends the most. It also sucks because this is our last year. I won't be seeing these guys again collectively for a long time, if ever.

That being said, I have been able to occasionally sneak off campus (or even go to a friend's house! Gasp!) because some of my friends have started driving. The little pick me ups that I could find in between those feverish hours of studying reminded me of why I was actually studying.

I plan on being an English major, which, I know, is not the most practical major to choose from. And who knows where I'll go after graduating. Maybe law school, which would be the most practical thing to do. Maybe I'll write a book, and it'll be a best-selling hit and I won't have to work a day in my life. Who even knows?

I guess the best part of my personality is that I'm adaptable and my interests are broad. There are many, many options for me that I'll be happy with. In the past, I had this particular ambition of wanting to change the world and getting recorded in history books...but that doesn't feel as important anymore. I do want to change the world, but not because of my own big-headed ideas of my own importance, but because the world needs change, just as it's always had.

But I guess in order to do that, I need to learn some things first.

I do have an ultimate goal, and it's not a degree or a book or a career.

At the end of the day, it's simply...experience.

Experience of working on projects that make me feel good because I'm doing something productive and using my skills and finishing a final product. Experience of seeing new things and eating new things and listening about new things. Experience of learning about subjects that I could never have been interested in, and then feeling academically stimulated. Experience about learning emotions and relationships and how it feels to have all of these FIRSTS (first relationship, first kiss, first epic fight, first calling-someone-out-on-their-bullshit-and-not-being-a-coward).

My goal requires hard work and dedication. It's hard to remember that when I'm sitting miserably at 3 AM stuffing my brain with facts and trying not to break down from the exhaustion and the pressure.

But it'll sure be worth it.