From today there are officially ten days of high school left for me, as well as for every other member of the graduating class of 2008. I’m excited for all the things that I hope to do over the summer, or at least until I start college (hopefully in the Spring of 2009). I will probably attend Marshall University at their College of Journalism in Huntington, WV. My goal in the long run is to get out of this state; in the short run, it’s to go see Streetlight Manifesto tomorrow night. I have a lot of micro plans and big plans and ambitions, most of which are either/or type of deals.. But I am determined to fulfill as many of them as possible. Just this week I have met one goal, which was to attend the certificate dinner at James Rumsey (the technical institute at which I’ve been taking automotive technology for the past two years). I also filled out an application to Marshall, and finally got my SAT scores (I took the test in June of 2007, they apparently received the scores on April 18th, and I finally got them yesterday). All I can say is that I am much more proud of my ACT score, even though they both would have gotten me the 24/1600 Club honor.

Tomorrow I am going to buy my ticket to go to prom with Jeff Kershner. Then my mom and I are leaving for Allentown, Pennsylvania, to see Streetlight Manifesto, Zox, and Dan Potthast. We’ll probably be home around 3 AM, and I may or may not go to school Friday. Then Friday night is prom; Jeff is taking me to Olive Garden for dinner, then we’ll be heading off to the Holiday Inn for the actual dance. After the dance he’s taking me home, because I don’t go to parties. I don’t see the point in getting drunk with a bunch of people I only half-like at best. Saturday I was invited to go to a carnival with a friend from the internet who lives about half an hour away from me; I’m not too keen on being the outsider in a group of him and his friends, so my bottom line is either Mom comes with me or I don’t go–and judging by her reaction, and my wanting to save money, it looks like I’m not going to go. Otherwise, Dad wanted to take me to this comic book shop in Hagerstown that we haven’t been to in years. That would probably be better, to spend some time with my dad while I’m still living here with them. Mom is already getting upset, and my high school year hasn’t even ended yet!

I also want to have a camp out with my few friends who will come, for a meeting of the Midnight Society (from Are You Afraid of the Dark?): we’ll have a tent (hopefully), the fire pit, a flashlight or two, and a book (at least one) of “scary” stories to read aloud. Mom also mentioned something about having a cotillion, basically, for me, as a graduation party, at the Purple Iris. It’s always been my dream to dress elegantly and go to a ball–you can tell I was exposed to Cinderella at a very impressionable age. Depending on where that sits (if it does happen) against the quarry gathering at the end of the regular school year, that will be my last hurrah with the friends I have here. Once I am graduated and my summer has officially begun, I’m not going to go out of my way to contact anyone anymore, except for a select few who do indeed try, because honestly I don’t think a lot of my so-called friends do put forth any effort into our friendships. They can call, text message, e-mail, Myspace, Facebook, or instant message me if they really want to stay in touch. Personally I hardly care either way, but I decided that my life is about me right now, and so I’m leaving it up to them now whether they want to remain friends or to move on.

Unfortunately, most of my plans for my break depend on when I start college. If I have to start in the fall, my plans will have to go much more rapidly than if I do actually start in the spring. Really I need a sanity break from this ridiculous educational system crap, but if I have to kind of lie to keep my Promise scholarship, then so be it: I’ll be taking the fall off so that I can help pay for my dorms at Marshall (since Promise basically covers the $4,000-some tuition; but living accommodations are over $6,000, books and supplies are about $1,000, and I have to live on campus for my freshman and sophomore years if I do go to Marshall). I’ll be taking up extra hours at the library once Danielle and Elizabeth quit, and may pick up a second job (hopefully at a jewelry store; I wanted to work in jewelry before I got my job at the library last year, but you have to be eighteen for contracts and whatnot and I wasn’t old enough at the time).

First on my list of activities to do is to go skydiving. I found a company called Skydive Virginia! that’s based in Louisa, VA, that do tandem jumps for about $240 for a first jump. I couldn’t find anyone to go with me, so I’m most likely going by myself. There are a few places I want to visit also, specifically the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, the Moundsville Penitentiary in Moundsville, WV, and the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. The latter two are supposed to be haunted, and along with those I want to do the “ghost tour” in Harpers Ferry. Those endeavors aside, I also want to read Moby Dick, maybe sell some of my own writing, as well as some things on eBay for some extra cash. Then, if I can start college in the spring, in about September (because August has birthdays), I’m going to buy a month-long train pass for Amtrak, that runs around $600, and I’m going to hit any and every city I find interesting. I especially am curious about New York City, Montreal, Omaha, and Albuquerque. We’ll see how far thirty days really goes. I’m going to pay the $20 to have internet put on my mobile phone for that month and probably the next, so that I can update things like this, use my instant messengers, and check my e-mail without having to stop at libraries. If I have to start school in the fall, then I’ll be traveling in July probably, after the Fourth but in time so that I can be home for my sister’s and my dad’s birthdays.

I’m going to try to devote a good deal of time to my language studies. I really would like to improve my Chinese and my Portuguese, and pick up on some thirteenth or fourteenth hobby language. It’s just hard here to find materials for other languages, since most people here speak either only English or Spanish/English, and aren’t very open to learning new languages. I might try Korean. I know one word, and it’s the one for hello: anyunghaseo. It’s a nice flowing word, I think. But I definitely want to work on my Chinese. I love it, and I would like to have at least a decent grasp of the grammar and an at least adequate vocabulary (I can only really remember maybe ten words, not counting numbers), if not in Traditional/Simplified Mandarin script, but at least in Pinyin.

Well, I guess this is where I cut myself off for the night. Today was a busy day, for what it was: we didn’t have school because of vandalism at the bus garage, but I still had to go to work for three hours, and I took Anthony out to Quizno’s for lunch/dinner for his birthday (which was on April 9th; so I was almost a month late) just like I had promised him I would. (He told me that I didn’t have to, and I said, “Yeah, but I said I would; and if I don’t keep my word, I could get in the habit of it. Then I’d be an asshole like everyone else I know.” That’s the way it is, after all. You just get lazy if you let things slide, and I don’t want to be one of those friends who doesn’t go out of their way for theirs, even if my friends won’t go out of their ways for me.) Then I spent an hour or so with my mom in the kitchen, and then I was here at the computer. And now I’m going to spend some nice quality time with my comfy bed and my sweet dreams of Tomas Kalnoky (Streetlight Manifesto’s singer).

xoxo,
Sacha Lynn