i ain't no blogger

gosh, i ain't no blogger. people may say that i'm some sort of english genius, as if being able to produce 4 pages of absolute bs in response to an equally bs prompt is something to crow over. i believe that some, if not all the best bloggers are in fact not hailed as english geniuses but rather as people who have quirky, insightful views on life and are able to express them in a way that makes people laugh, cry, sigh, whatever.
again, i ain't no blogger. but i guess i'll try.
this is probably the most interesting time of our high school careers, as well as the most agnonizing. i once heard a dartmouth admissions officer say that the hardest part of our college applications are already over by the time the three dreadful months (october, november, december) roll in. why? because we've already done the activities, received the grades, did our community service and so on and so forth.
i think he is spectacularly off the mark. the hardest part, over?
then why do i sit here and agonizingly click on college websites over and over, wondering if this or that school is right for me and the even more pertinent question: can i even make it in?
i do envy people who simply apply to all the UCs and select the best one they get into.
i refuse to let myself do that. what a stubborn person i am.
ever since i dragged my little self into california, i decided that i was going to jet as soon as possible. (that's ASAP for you abbreviators.) i want my snow, i want my ivy growing on brick walls, i want my frisbee tournaments on lush green fields of grass dotted with majestic oak trees whose leaves turn colors in the fall.
yet, i wonder if i'm really ready to leave my parents, california, high school.
i am so scared.
i mean, i'm supremely dependent for a high schooler of my age. i don't drive. i don't even have a permit. i don't have a job and i make puppy eyes at my parents for money. i guess i always assumed that once that label of "adult" was slapped on me following my high school graduation, i'd somehow automatically start acting like one.
but we all know that that's not true. i mean, i know people branded with the label "adult" and still act as if they're an adolescent.
so while i prance around and haughtily declare that i'm getting out of california for college as fast as my little legs will take me, it's a mask.
people think i'm so sure of myself, but i've never been more uncertain about anything in my life. its the same thing as I do with my english essays; make up a bunch of bs, throw in a few confident declarations and in the end hope for everything to turn out okay.
but does college, the next phase of my life, conform to the same rules as a pathetic english assignment?
i don't think i can really make this one up as I go along.
at times i think i should stop telling everyone that i wish to be east coast bound because in spite of my uncertainty, the one thing i'm certain about is that come march, i don't want to be branded as a fool.
"look at stephanie, who told everyone she was going away. now she's stuck here, just like we knew she would."
but at the same time, I feel telling everyone gives me more confidence. more hope. as if saying something over and over could help make it come true. does it?
i wonder how everyone else is feeling. there is an immense range of college bound seniors in school, from the IB overachievers who apply to 12493849 different schools to the slacker kids who would love to do nothing more than to go to a community college and slack even more. not that i'm bagging on community college. you can go slack anywhere, but i'm pret-ty sure these kids aren't harvard bound.
i wonder. how. everyone. is. coping? with the fact that our future is looming over us. this time next year we'll be scattered everywhere, making the first tentative steps towards whatever it is we want to do with our lives.
i wish i could be a million things. a humanitarian (is that really a career choice?); a teacher, an art museum director, a marine biologist, a tour guide, an organic farmer, a governor, a beat poet.
who knows?