17 and Summertime

     Every summer my best friend and I have taken to making a list of goals for the next few months, a summer bucket-list if you will.  Well apart from that here's my own personal summer bucket-list, that I know you're just dying to read:

• Watch the sunset at the beach
• Reconnect with old friends
• Read a new book that has nothing to do with anything magical
• Finish my entire summer math packet for once
• Carve my name into a tree
• Make at least one July Saturday night unforgettable
• Avoid negative thoughts
• Meet a new good-friend
• Do not judge anyone based on others' opinions
• Do a front flip on a trampoline
• Bleach my hair again
• Take at least one new risk
• Make memories and keep some secrets
• Not worry

     So there you have it, along with my other list of typical-teenaged-girl summer to-do's, this one is my very own.  Why not just mix this one up with the one me and my friend have? Well that's an easy question; this is my summer being 17, and she still gets to have her 16th summer which is already special in so many ways.  So it may be silly, but there you have it.  Fingers crossed!

It's the Age of Innocence

     There have been times when I've wished I grew up in the 60s, the 20s, and especially the 90s.  I read books, watch shows, and learn about those decades; especially the 90s.  But, when I stepped back and looked at Beverly Hills 90210 or Saved by the Bell I realized something: it's all in my head.  Their lives seem like so much fun.  Back in a time when dating was a process that involved a getting picked up at the door, a movie (possibly dinner beforehand) and maybe, just maybe, a little kiss goodnight.  A time when clothing didn't have to be revealing to be considered good-looking.  A time when good, clean fun was the only type of fun there was.  If only that was the case.  It's not about when they grew up, because I'm sure that a few decades down the line there will be teenagers wishing they had grown up at the turn of the millennium.  Life can always seem innocent if that's the way you want it to be.  The truth is, the age of innocence is not when you're a little kid, it isn't a certain decade either.  The age of innocence is the time period when someone forgets all the hardships and pointless fights that have happened, it's that rare moment (after you've grown up a bit a realized that life isn't always rainbows and butterflies) when you flash back and see your life as the decade you want to be in, see it as the best time in the world.  We learn from the mistakes and the awesomeness of the times before us to shape a unique and thrilling world of our own.  It's not really an era, it's more of a mentality.

Fact: My Brother Loves Tom Delonge.

     Whether it's Blink-182, Boxcar Racer, or Angels and Airwaves, my brother is all but infatuated with Tom Delonge.  Why am I saying this?  Why is this worth a post?  That's simple:  I like those bands because he showed them to me; I fell in love with them because of him.
      There's this one song by Boxcar Racer, "There Is", that my brother showed me his freshmen year of high school.  How do I remember this?  My brother had a crazy girlfriend that made him sing her this song on skype almost every night.  Well,  my he is not a freshmen in high school anymore, in fact he's done with Good Counsel and in a couple of weeks he'll have officially graduated.  Besides the multiple bands that he has introduced me to, when I think of his for years of high school I think about the people that were around him.  As much of a loner as everyone seems to think he is, he has always had someone there.
      Freshmen year he has this crazy girlfriend from a different state.  She seemed decent but turned out to be a but psycho.  Then the summer was devoted to his oldest friend, my other brother, a couple other old camp friends, and these two girls he befriended at school earlier that year.  Then sophomore year there was this stoner chick (not a fan) and his bestfriend-turned girlfriend, she was nice.  There also were some newer school friends, these came sophomore year but they never left, and I hope they never will.  Summer goes back to typical summer friends but with new addition of these new boys.  Junior year came and along with that came a senior girlfriend! Yeah, sounds cool in theory, but she was weird too.  I never liked her much.  Then came summer, classic friends.  And finally, during his senior year he asked out the bestfriend he had dated sophomore year.
     That's my brother in people.  Those are the people I think of when I think of him these past years.  As weird as some of them were, they were so meant for him.  He had fun and, even though it didn't seem like it, he had a pretty stereotypic high school experience.  What am I going to do without him next year?

Starlight, Starbright

     I want my ceiling to be alive with stars again.  When I was little they were like a cool nightlight when I was getting weaned off a real nightlight.  Then, as I got older they became more of something magical; something that connected my world to the worlds of the books that I'd read.  Now I still read those books, but there's no connection to my world anymore.  The few stars (and meteors) that remain don't shine and together barely make a dull glow.  I want my nights to be alive again.  I wish the stars would come back.

When did I become old enough to go to Prom?

     Yeah, what?  Prom is for older people, for teenagers...oh wait, that's me.  Well there are two roads I can go down at this point: the one that recedes back into my childhood and refuses to accept that I'm growing up, or the one that embraces my 16-going-on-17 self and milk my prom experience for all it's worth.

     That all seems dandy, until you factor in that it's not just one magical dance that I will remember for the rest of my life...they're three (and that's just this year)!  In the movies it's only one high school, one prom, one year.  I guess I was naive enough to think that that's how it would be for me when I become of age.  I forgot to factor one little thing in however: I don't go to public school, and the catholic school system screws up the whole movie idea that I've worked up in my head ever since I've been old enough to watch Disney Channel.  Instead of one school, there are at least six.  Instead of just seniors at prom, because of the lack of students, there are seniors and juniors.  Instead of a prom king and queen, there is a prom queen and a princess.

    

     So I guess my many proms won't ALL be completely memorable, but the only way I'll find out is if I act like each prom is my only one.  At least one better be memorable this year, for all the stress it's worth.

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.