The Final Stretch
So wow, I haven't updated this journal in like forever (or what seems like forever)... but thats because my past month has been packed with wonderfully fun and delightful things. Okay - I know you don't believe me, so I'll just admit that xanga isn't working so I'm resorting to LJ. No offense, LJ, xanga is just my priority. haha anyways, moving on to bigger and better things...
Graduation is tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day where i wake up early and shower and put on my metallic blue robe and tassel, and walk down the auditorium with about 200 other kids in my grade, and I recieve a diploma and a handshake. Somehow I don't feel that it's actually real - but that may be due to the fact that I've been at commencement three times before, and as of tomorrow, I will have been at commencement for 4 consecutive years. Dang - that's a long time, right? Why, you may ask. Well that one is thanks to my band dorkiness, and my dedication to my dearly beloved instrument. But seriously, I've been there enough to have officially memorized "Aida" from the Marching Band book. It's quite sad really. But you know, life is just like that. full of repetitions.
The funny thing about high school is that it has such an anti-climatic end. My physics teacher compared the high school experience to walking off a cliff... You work so hard and each year you work harder and harder until you fall off - and then that's it. No heart-warming reward, no giant trophy at the end of the finish line. After four years of increasingly grueling work - it just ends. And I don't know, perhaps thats the weirdest part about it. My Cambridge buddy pointed out that graduation is different because we no longer are able to relive experiences - they just become memories. It was always if you couldn't do it one year - you'd just do it the next year. Or if you weren't able to achieve something one year, you always had the chance ot try again next year. That's how it was. and then all of a sudden - all of those opportunities are closed off? Now what? What's next - after the cliff?
I feel like this is the ending of a chapter of my life . Granted, it probably wansn't the most exciting chapter of my life - but it just was. It existed. And i survived through it (in one piece, might I add), and I'm glad to be moving on to a tech school. It's so weird - I still can't digest the fact that I was accepted into MIT, that the core requirements for every undergraduate involves a series of math and science classes. I can't believe that I have the opportunity to achieve my dream to become an engineer. It's great. I love engineering. I don't know why - but somehow over the past few years I've learned to adore it. Perhaps it was my experience at engineering camp that catalyzed it (I know what you're thinking - "there's such thing as an engineering camp?") but let me tell you - my week at engineering camp changed the rest of my life. From that point on, I had a direction. I felt like I had a purpose in my life. And I had a goal.
The only difficulty about these next four years is not goign to be "finding who I am" or "discovering myself" or some type of crap like that. My greatest challenge will be finding what I want to do for the rest of my life. What I love, what I will love doing, and finding the perfect passion. My heart will guide me to whatever path I need to take next, and I know the most important thing to me is finding something I truly love to do for a living. I want to get paid for something I love to do, rather than be paid for something I am reluctant to do. Money is not the most important factor in my life - my happiness. And as you well know, Money can't buy happiness.
However, for everything else, there's Visa Mastercard.