In which I ramble, there are nine days of school left (ten, depending on how you count), and sentimentality reigns.

Ninedaysninedaysninedaysninedays.

I honestly can't believe that. It still all seems very surreal-- like it won't actually be happening until the minute after the bell rings on the very last day of school. I'm having a ridiculously difficult time wrapping my head around the idea that there will be a time, a time which is fast approaching, when I'll be completely finished with public education. And not just me, either. All of my friends-- done. 

And all of my friends grown up. Or at least, judged grown-up enough to move out on their own, with all the responsibilities that entails. Old enough to smoke, to vote (I GET TO VOTE, AND SOON-- LOOK OUT, AMERICA). This all just seems so totally off-the-charts crazy to me. I mean, today in Biology we were giggling about frog goo. Is it really possible that soon, I'll giggle about frog goo and then go back to a dorm? Where I'll be living? On my own, sans parents? It doesn't feel possible. It also doesn't feel possible that I'll have to find different people with which to giggle about frog goo. I'm going to miss you guys.

I'm thrilled to graduate, of course I am, if for no other reason than that I worked hard for this, and so did you guys, and we all deserve it. I'm pretty sure everyone who reads this blog signed themselves up for AP classes, for sports, for extracurriculars that demanded their time and devotion and energy. Some adults may blow off high school students like we're no big deal, like we don't know what real work is like, but we totally do and no one can tell me differently. 

But even so, graduation is scary. And more than that, it's sad. So I'm scared, and I'm sad, and I'm also proud of everyone I know, and incredibly fond of all of you. 

At least we're all sitting here in the dark together, wondering what comes next. I wouldn't want to be stuck in this place alone (if I needed a metaphor, I might say small, windowless, stuffy closet, hurtling out of a twentieth story window, about to hit the ground and shatter open and fling us all to the far corners of the world, shaken but relatively unharmed-- but eh, I don't really want a metaphor). 

I guess what I'm trying to say, guys, is good luck. :]