The Whole Wide World is Mine.

     So here I am once again running for SGA president.  This time is different though because I'm running for both school and class president.  Ever since freshman year I've had the dream that I'd be class president all four years.  At first it started as a blind ambition, a wanting to be in charge of something.  As the years passed my goal didn't change, but the reasoning behind it did.  I stopped wanting to be remembered and respected; I wanted to help the people that mean so much to me.  I know it sounds incredibly cheesy but it's true.  I want to make a difference in my class, I don't want myself to be remembered, I want my class to.
      So here I am, torn between only running for class president or not places my eggs all in one basket and making my odds of being elected a little greater.  I know what I have to do if I truly care about making next year, my senior year, unforgettable.  So I'll run for both, I will not pick one over the other, I will be happy no matter the outcome, I will help and support whoever gets elected; I can do it.  It's the classic case of the little engine that could.  I think I can, I think I can, therefore I will.  At least that's the optimistic view of everything, and that's okay to have.
     So, in the words of Angels and Airwaves, "everyday I wake and tell myself little, harmless lie: The whole wide world is mine."

May the odds be EVER in your favor.

     Yes it is a Hunger Games reference, no this post is not going to be all about the book-turned-movie phenomenon.  So I don't believe in good or bad luck, I think it's what you make of a situation that determines what kind of luck you have.  I consider myself an incredibly lucky person, not because I always win contests and prizes, but because what I do get seems to be better than anything I could ever ask for.
     I think I started being contest-lucky in fourth grade, that's when I started to notice it at least.  We had a bake-sale at lunch and I put a couple of tickets into the pot just out of habit (at this point I really had no hope in ever winning one of those cakes).  The end of the day comes and they're about to announce the winners so I turn to my friends and start talking about how I never win, and what do you know, "Camila in 4th grade" is what the student on the PA says.  The day I brought home that baseball cake was passed in complete, surprising bliss.  Ever since then I have won many more raffles, a couple of contests, and a chance to ask a lead singer to prom on stage.  I don't know about you but I'd call that pretty lucky.
     But it's not the cake, or the prizes, or even the prom date that matters.  The prom date fell through but I'm not disappointed; I'm too lucky to be disappointed.  The reason all those things are so special is because i never expect to win, I'm never confident in my luck even though I have a fairly decent track record.  I enter things because they go to a good cause, my friends asked me to, or I just do it out of habit.  Sharing whatever reward I have with my friends is the best part.  The shock that comes across their face all but supersedes my own.
     So I am lucky, I'm lucky to have friends that I can share these things with.  I have amazing luck to have had so many best friends throughout my life that I've never felt alone.  Whether they leave the state or we just lose touch, I'm sad but at the same time it makes room for another person to come in and create lasting memories with me.  I guess I'm lucky that they leave at the perfect time for someone else to walk in.  That's all there really is to it, friends that is.  I know it sounds really cheesy but as long as you have those two or three people that you wouldn't change for the world, good and bad, no matter how long they stay, you should consider yourself lucky.  I know I do.
     So here's a list, a list of my greatest accomplishment in the luck category in no particular order.  If I did believe in good and bad luck, I'd say I've had the best luck so far.
EF
NT
AT
JR
LN
PR
LS
VM
MM
MF
FR
TC
PM
MF
AR
MC
SS
and I wouldn't take anyone off this list for the world.

Fact: Boy Friends are way better than Boyfriends

     Boy-Searching, Boy-Shopping, Boy-Hunting.  It doesn't matter what you call it, we all did it.  Whether it was hitting up the mall or scoping out dances, one of the main activities for you and your group of girl friends was to try and make more guy friends.  Now that we're a bit older we can ditch the cheesy name and simply say we're going to meet new people.  You start at an early age to think that the only way you make friends with the opposite gender is to go out of your way with a group of people to make yourselves known.  Well I'll tell you one thing: it was a lot easier back then.
     Now don't get me wrong, I don't think I'll miss those days of "boy-hunting", it was just a lot easier to meet new people when the aforementioned objective was on the forefront of  everyone's minds.  There are so many ways to meet people when you're younger because you don't know anyone to begin with, every face you see is a potential new friend.  Now, we always used to say all we wanted was to be friends with those guys that we'd meet, but we all know that's a lie.  Back then you met a guy so you could like him.  Unfortunately, we've exhausted all our boy-meeting efforts on those futile and very shallow reasons so that when you get a bit older and decide you do want new guy friends, there are no more to meet!  What seemed like the easiest thing in the world has now become rather difficult and tedious.  The bigger your social circle gets (and it expands exponentially during that first year of venturing out into society and befriending everyone that looks your age) the harder it becomes to keep expanding.  It's gotten to the point where everyone knows everyone and there is no way to meet a person without already having some sort of link to them!
     It may just be the catholic school system, it may just be microscopic Montgomery County, it might just be the amount of people in my age group in general, whatever it is...I hate it.

The Lying Game

     I'm playing my own lying game.  The scary part is I don't want to play; I'm stuck inside my own lying game.

     It was easier when I only had one best friend, but recently so many great people have strolled into my life that the list has gotten four times as big.  Most of the time the number doesn't affect me, but lately I'm caught in the middle of something I couldn't care less about.
     The closer you get to someone the more you trust them, and in turn, the more they trust you.  The more they trust you, the more they tell you.  People trust me; they trust me for a reason.  If someone asks me not to tell anyone, I don't.  It's simple and easy, or at least it was.  The closer you get with someone the more you want to tell them until it gets to the point where you want to tell them everything.  You can see where having more than one best friend gets conflicting.
     Lying about knowing, lying about how much, lying about what exactly it is.  You can have all the details from both sides and still not be able to say a word.  When I said I was playing my own lying game before, I lied.  It's not my game, I am just one of the pawns.  If I choose to quit it means I restrict people being able to talk to me; if I choose to quit I lose.  If I keep playing my friends  are gonna tear me apart slowly and unknowingly; if I choose to keep playing, I lose.  My two friends, they are the players moving my piece around the board.  I can't side with either because that means I don't agree with one.  I can't keep defending one to the other.  I'm stuck inside a lose-lose situation.
 
     Let's go back to when Candy Land was the only game people liked playing.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

     I'm sitting outside on my grandfather's balcony, all the windows are open leading to the inside, and it's December.  The breeze is amazing, the weather is perfect, and I'm freaking out a little bit.  The only other time I've been here over Christmas was at least 8 years ago and I was ungrateful and pissed off the entire time.  This time it was my idea to come here, I know it makes my parents happy to come home and growing up makes me miss this place more and more so it's the least I could do to suck up my aversion to leaving Maryland for any length of time.
     There's something about the idea that it's going to be in the 80 degrees on Christmas that makes me cringe a little bit.  Don't get me wrong, this is such a nice break from the freezing temperatures back at home, but there are no songs about a blistering hot Christmas.  Sleigh rides through the snow, walking in winter wonderlands, dreaming of white Christmases, that doesn't exist here.  It was the absolute weirdest thing picking out a dress for Christmas Mass and not thinking about warmth...I picked a summer dress.
     That being said, I love it here.  The atmosphere, the family, the language is all completely intoxicating.  Being out on the balcony I can hear the perfect mix of the occasional car rushing by, my brother playing guitar, the thrilling conversation at the table, all wrapped in this unexplainable calm.  Things are good here; everyone's happy.  I've been coming here since I was three weeks old but I just recently started appreciating it.  The truth is, even though I'm scared to admit it to myself half the time, sometimes I think I wouldn't mind living here for a while.  I don't regret at all not moving in 5th grade like we were supposed to, my life is something I wouldn't change at all, but my life wouldn't be that bad (except for never having the slightest chance of a white Christmas and having the holiday over my summer break, that would suck).
     Sometimes I think it might have been better for me...

5 Years Gone in The Blink of an Eye

     Sorry if this is getting repetitive, it'll stop after this.

     It was November 13, 2006, a little before 6pm.  I was on my way to my basketball practice at Oakland Terrace; I was running late.  As soon as my mom and I turned onto Strathmore it became clear that we were going to be way later than originally anticipated.  There was a traffic jam on that road caused by an accident, all I remember thinking was how mad coach was going to be at me.  The actual practice has long-since escaped my memory.  I was happy to see that on the way home the traffic was all gone, I made it back in record time.
Next Scene:
     I was downstairs playing Neopets, and then my brother comes to the top of the stairs.  Our conversation went exactly, not somewhat, like this:
"Do you know what happened tonight"
"What happened where?"
"The accident"
"What happened?"
"Luke died"
...

     And that was it. The rest is one huge blur. Five years ago today someone older than my died.  Today, a 12 year old boy died five years ago; I am four years older than he will ever be.  I don't get to say this out loud a lot, maybe once a year, but I miss Luke Carter-Schelp and that is one day that I will never forget.

It's a love-hate type of thing.

     I know everyone always says that you should tell your friend if someone their dating is totally obnoxious and what not, but is that really necessary? Here's what I think:
You don't have to like every person your friend goes out with, but you should like what they do to the friend.  Each person has individual quirks, pet peeves, and obsessions; it's natural.  So just because your likes and dislikes don't match up perfectly with those of your best friend, that's not an excuse to bring them down every chance you get.
      My best friend in the whole world is currently in a relationship with this guy who she met at a dance.  Now I have personally gone back and forth on this relationship more times than a ping pong ball during a really intense game.  He's not my favorite person in the world and I have never really refrained from making my feelings known (in my defense I think she deserves something along the lines of perfection); until now that is.  While thinking about the things that make me dislike him I realized this: he isn't forced to like me just like I'm not forced to like him, all we're required to do is like my friend.  When I took a step back I thought about how happy he makes her (most of the time) and what a good person she has become because of all the things she has learned while dating him.  That's when it hit me that I do approve of him as her boyfriend, I may never want to be friends with him, but I do approve.
     It's weird the way friendship works, you define the standards for someone else's happiness.  When you meet someone who has changed your life, all you want is the best for them; you have to realize however, that your best and their best are two totally different things.  Ultimately, as long as they're happy in the moment with how things are, you should be grateful to whatever makes them this way.  That's how I am.  I am grateful that my friend is happy and I am grateful the he makes her so.  I'm grateful that she met him and I'm grateful that she has thus far ignored all the rude things I have said.  All in all, whether I can stand him or not, I am grateful for him, and that's all that matters.