(79) Socks are nice

(78)

This was me trying, in class, to figure out if my hair was centered...fail.

(77) Another Thursday

Who is the person on the other side of the window?

No title thought of yet.

This time next year, I can write to you, the reader, from my college dorm. Maybe with my roommate looking over my shoulder.

Where is this college? Who will this roommate be?

I have the answer to neither of these questions. It's late October of my senior year of high school, and no applications bearing my name and accomplishments have been sent out. I've been largely avoiding the topic of my plans for next year...because they are non-existent.

I'm afraid. I'm afraid to leave the people I was raised with, everyone from my past who has shaped who I've become (for the better or the worse). I'm afraid of the magnitude of this decision, and even more so I'm afraid of making the wrong decision. There are hundreds of schools out there, I'm sure, at which I could be very happy. I'm confident that I can adjust to being anywhere with anyone, but there's always the little voices of college reps telling you that you *will* find a place that's perfect for you.

What if no where is perfect for me? Or what if *anywhere* is perfect for me?

I'm a big fan of small public liberal arts schools. This is very possibly owing to the fact that I've grown up just blocks from one and love it...but there's something holding me back from just effing the college search and going with my gut...to stay at UMM. (I really, really do love it here. I'm not just saying that. I feel so at home on campus, I love the size and surprising diversity, I love the direction in which this school is headed.) What is this something, I'm asking myself?

Maybe it's because I've been hearing my whole life about how much potential people seem to think I have. So my parents read to me when I was little and I played outside instead of watching TV. This seems to have given me a huge advantage over the other kids. It taught me to think. It taught me to explore. It made me into one of the Smart Kids. The ones who are supposed to go to some big name school and get their PhD in something hard to pronounce and do something good for the world. I hate that people I know seem to have these expectations for me. What if I don't live up to them?

Maybe it's because many of my close friends are branching out, dreaming of actually heading off to some big name school next year. Maybe I don't want it to seem like I'm somehow not as capable or ambitious if my best friends are making their mark on a 40,000 dollars-a-year institution and I'm at public school X. I'm so god damn competitive, I can't just let myself be happy. I need to be happy and reassured that I'm not coming in last in this stupid race that society has constructed for us.

I'm not done here, but I have to go to class. Yay.

(76) Took him up to heaven alive

I think this photo
is just interesting enough
to be worthy of
an interesting post layout.
Don't you think?
Today was so glorious.
I enjoyed it immensely.
(Most of it.)
(Except for the rain.)
(And maybe a few other parts.)

Making a cameo in this picture is Andrew's wrist and thumb.

(74) What would the founders say?

i've pretty much been thinking politics...all month
and this book is one of the reasons i'm slacking off on 365
just so you know
it's not because i don't love You
take it up with my professor
why did I write the caption to this picture like this?
i dunno
does this even count as a caption?
i dunno
i'm going to bed

(73) Senior blooper.

Sunday as the sun sets, hours before senior pictures are due. And in a ditch, no less. A pretty ditch.

I took all of my senior pictures myself, and as a result...things like this

occasionally happened. Tee-hee.

(72) Me and my ashen skin and barely visible peephole eye.

Raise your hand if you can tell I've had a lazy few days. That should be all of you.

(71) Go me.

A stressed out Bess = This picture. It's of my finger. Which was in the way of the lens. Which was supposed to be capturing something interesting in my lap, I think. But that was days ago. And then I did homework for 40 days and 40 nights. And that's what happened. Here you are.

(70) Leaves

They're pretty. This picture is not for me, but for them.

(69) Tuesday

Yeah, I looked about as good as I felt. But on the bright side, I *was* wearing a purple and pink scarf on my head. What a relief.

(68) This one is for Monday, now. I'm cheating.

(67) Here's a potential senior picture.

Of course, after I fiddle with the exposure to make myself *not* a ghost.

(66) It's like folk music

To which I was listening in order to get in a picture-taking mood. This isn't a senior picture, but this shot opportunity was too sweet/poetic to pass up.

(65) One of those instances where I shunned lunch in favor of piano

Oh, and I once again apologize to my 1 or 1.5 loyal readers for rarely updating this project. Times are a-hectic, you know? I'm working on it. I actually took a bunch of pretty good shots today as an attempt at senior pictures, so one of those will pop up as my Saturday entry...and maybe if I take new ones Sunday'll get one too.

(64) At lunch

How "lunch" has changed from one year to the next. I'm still in high school, but I have not once out of five weeks eaten lunch in the MAHS cafeteria. This is a significantly happy thing for me. I've usually been home, at TMC with Andrew, or foregoing lunch altogether to play piano in HFA. (This post is loaded with acronyms.) Occasionally we even bop down to Willie's for samiches or something. How fantastic is this sort of freedom? Sad, actually, that I consider the choice of lunching to be a great freedom. I suppose in comparison to last year...eh. This year is strange and wonderful, I have decided. Being caught between the worlds of college and high school and not being treated as a fully-fledged member of either institution sucks hardcore. But I get different benefits of both worlds, so high five for that.

I digress:

(63) A few days ago

I was looking kind of cute. I think. I'm working on the self-esteem thing, I really am! And it helps that I've actually had a remarkable couple of days immediately preceded by a shitty couple of days. Anyway. Here:

(62) Yesterday was Thursday

Bitch Please.

(61) Yesterday was Tuesday

This picture is actually completely random. There's no reason behind it. I like the sepia setting on my camera, I guess.

(60) My 18th Birthday

I turned 18 the day the stock market crashed
I wore a sun dress that reminded me of an Easter egg
Even though it was freezing :)
I renewed my driver's license!
Crazy, crazy adult hood

(59) Sunday, the 28th.

lazy day
pajamas
and stuff

Hokay, so.

I've decided that for all of those days I missed even taking a picture for...screw 'em.

They were bad days anyway.

I'm resuming the count to 365 as though that week of MIA or so never happened...
(because honestly I just wish that week had never happened).



In other news. What's going on in the world? Well, the stock market crashed on my birthday.


Go that.

Perhaps more significantly, it crashed on Rosh Hashannah Begins at Sundown Day.

We will now resume our scheduled programming.