Talk About a Juxtaposition 

I feel like such a typical teenager when I lament about the lack of summer and exhaustion of school and yes, I know, I should sop it up like the big baby that I am, but man oh man. The juxtaposition between the life I led this summer and the life I'm currently navigating around seems too wide of a gap to be real. The four weeks at CSSSA and the four weeks since seem to be the most linear path of my emotional growing that I've ever been able to follow. 

Dorm room decor snippets. 

California State Summer School for the Arts was this huge experience that took me weeks to process. It was full of sunlit dorm rooms and roommate dance parties and Sylvia Plath and weird snippets of conversation and lots of variation on the best way to make Chai tea. It made me feel involved and current and like a true artist, sans mental beret. It was very best of times and worst of times. There was a lot of self doubt and discovery and rejection and inadequacy and the joy of applause. It was less than what I expected to be in some ways and more in others. Now I generally remember the experience fondly, with thoughts of a too floral dorm room and my favorite library table, but there were some distinguishable moments there that I felt defeated. I'm glad for those moments. This summer, in its entirety, was a very large growing summer. 

I came back and everything was different. I had too many inside jokes, references from books I'd never even read, and friends spread all over the state, the country, and the world. I'm so much more sure of who I am now. I had a hell of a lot of conviction before, but there's something new to the confidence this year. I know that I can do what I want to and be who I want to and accomplish something, which maybe I knew before but not in the same degree. 

Coming back to home and high school has been a huge change. I have to wake up at like, six o'clock every morning, which I know is not bad at all compared to others, but I am a perpetually exhausted teenager and because it gives me another thing to whine about (though the exhaustion is getting better). Senior year is this huge thing full of decisions and stress and I'm faced with the fact that I'm over-committed and can't say no to things. I really need to work on that, but I'm trying to figure things out and so far I seem to be doing an okay job. 

The change this summer was documented poorly over instagram, but this year is going to be full of much more change and sappy soul searching than ever. I kind of want to document all of that, so here we go. Hooray for upcoming iPhone pictures and run on sentences. 

Change numero uno: 

Ooh, bad mirror pictures. 

I put purple in my hair. Yup. I resisted the hair dye all of CSSSA, but gave in at the beginning of September. Also, I totally stained my friend's bathroom counter and ran away from the mess and it was my most rebellious teenage moment yet. Aw yeah.