Demons of a Dreamer

      It is 9:35. It is 9:35 p.m. and the SAT scores are not posted until 2:00 a.m. I should be altering my costumes for tomorrows dance recital or cleaning my room, but no. I- like many of my scholarly high school peers- am consumed by the anxiety that seems to have set up a sitting room in the back of my brain. As an incoming High School senior, the world seems to be coming at me more quickly than I would like. Gone are the days of "Oh well, better luck next time," and instead we, the leaders of tomorrow, are met with missed opportunities that, at least now, seem to alter the course of our lives. They say that High School is the best time of a person's life. I hope they are wrong.
     Now, this is not the point where I turn on the whining about how no one understands me and I am lost in this place we call earth and nothing will ever improve. On the contrary. I am a dreamer, an optimist, an idealist. Oscar Wilde said, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Well, I would like to consider myself a stargazer. My hopes reach fairytale proportions. My heart is set on going to an east coast university, becoming a novelist, and traveling Europe. But dreaming is scary. As much as I would like to think otherwise, there is a very real possibility that I am not the next Jane Austen and that I will instead be the Starbucks regular aimlessly typing the prelude to my rejection letters. So that is why I hope that High School is not the best time of my life. It is terrifying to know that a couple grades now or a number on collegeboard can dictate the school I go to, the connections I make, the education I receive, and the success of my dream. 

     That is why I am starting a blog. I think that the pressure I feel during this ride to adulthood is not unique. In fact I know it is not. I constantly hear all of my friends talk about how the college application process makes them feel so dumb, so insignificant. The smartest people I know feel shaken and crippled; so just maybe the sharing of ideas and experiences of high school will help someone in some way. Maybe by the end of it all, when we are through the transition, we will be out of the gutter.