Ah, yes. Graduation. The culmination of one chapter in my life, and the commencement of another. And might I just add, it was one long, arduous chapter. At the end of eighth grade, I decided to go to King High School, which was a magnet school for the International Baccalaureate program. (The IB Program, for all of you to whom I haven't whined about it, is a four-year program which features a rigorous curriculum designed to acclimate its students to the trials and tribulations of collegiate academia.)It started pretty well, but after freshman year, I quickly realized that I was, as my junior-year English teacher Mrs. Allen would say, "up the river" (presumably without a paddle.) But I made it through all four years. And I did, eventually, get the prestigious IB diploma. (Only by the skin of my teeth, though!) All the stress of IB made me decide to take a year off this year.
But let's focus on some highlights of my tenure at King:
Now there's an attractive bunch. This is the viola section of the King High School Orchestra. Or at least it was. (I say that because six out of the seven people in the photo above, including myself, were seniors and have since graduated. I certainly hope some exceptional violists entered as freshman this year!) This was at our "Senior Concert," a concert in which all of us seniors got to choose a song for the orchestra to play. I chose to play "Bacchanale," from Saint-Saëns' "Samson and Delilah." We played it my freshman year, and I love it, because it's got this great Arabesque feel. (You can hear it here.) And now to something completely different:
This is the group with whom I went to my school's prom. And that dashing gent to the far left is, of course, me! And to my left is my date, my good friend (and fellowaficionadoo of the TV show Lost) Cathy Hughson. And to the left of us, it's my friends (from left to right) Dan P., Nichole, Pavel, Justine, Mike, Kim (a fellow violist), David, Vanessa, Devron, and Cassandra. What a rollicking band of hooligans, huh?
Which brings me to this photo! This is from my 18th birthday party. As my beleaguered parents can attest, I invited just about three-quarters of my class of about 120. Thankfully for them, only about 40 came. (If my parents were reading this, this would the point where they'd probably say, "Only?") The party was decades-themed, meaning that if they wanted to, people dress up in the style of any decade. You can't see any one dressed up in the photo above, but my friend Nate dressed in a warm-up suit that his Dad had from the '80s, my friend Frances dressed as a flapper girl straight from the Roaring '20s, and Kim (the girl to my left in the tank top), even dressed as Eve. (She changed out of her leaf-covered bathing suit pretty quickly!)
Speaking of bathing suits, here's a photo from this past summer. In June, not long after Graduation, I was invited on a Bahamas trips with some classmates and their Biology teacher, Mr. Hasse. They had one person opt out, so a spot was open for me. When I got the call from my friend Brent early one morning, I told him I'd love to go, but I'd have to ask my parents. I fully expected them to say no, but they surprisingly said yes. (Okay, okay, this was after hours of deliberation and a pretty effective sales pitch by me!) So I left the next week for Nassau. We spent a week on the small island of Spanish Wells. It's a pretty boring island, frankly, and we quickly found out that there really was only two things to do: snorkel and fish. And we did both. Silly me, though, forgot to put on my sunscreen the first day of snorkeling and got a pretty gnarly sunburn that had me out ofcommissionn for a day or so. All in all, however, it was a pretty great trip.
But that trip was by no means the only time I left the States. My trip to Spain this July was pretty unforgettable. I went to Spain last year to do this program called Englishtown, which is a total-immersion English language camp for Spaniards. Now, many of you might have read all about this on my mom's blog, but don't be fooled. Despite how she raves about it now, she sent me to go first as the guinea pig last year. When I came back with rave reviews, I think it put her at considerable ease about going the following September. And now we've both gone to Englishtown twice, and it keeps getting better and better for both of us. The photo above is of my team at Englishtown, which we called "Team Spanglish." At the teen Englishtown, we are split up in groups and compete for fame and glory. Each team wins points by being caught doing good deeds, or by having the Spaniards on the team be caught speaking English. However, a team can lose points by speaking Spanish--which is forbidden! Needless to say, Team Spanglish won in a landslide! This photo was taken in La Alberca, the town on which the resort we called home bordered.
Last summer, during my first Englishtown experience, I befriended another "Anglo," a girl from Savannah named Jennie. This year, we decided to spend a week after our Englishtown week touring the country. We spent time in Cordoba, Seville, and Madrid--where this photo was taken. Jennie took this photo, which shows me rowing the boat we rented for €4,20 at Madrid's Retiro Park. I had trouble at first rowing the boat (or should I say, I had trouble getting anywhere), but as you can see in this photo, I got into the swing of things pretty quickly.
When I chose to take a year off between high school and college, I didn't just want to spend it sitting around all day watching The Price is Right. I wanted to do something fulfilling. In my search for volunteer activities, I discovered City Year on the AmeriCorps website. City Year is a international not-for-profit organization which brings together 17-to-24-year-olds to do 10 months of service. There's fourteen sites around the nation, and one in South Africa. I chose to join City Year Chicago. So between September of this year and June 2006, I'll complete over 1700 hours of service, mainly through literacy tutoring and running an after-school program in an elementary school. The elementary school my team is at is North Kenwood/Oakland Charter School, which is run by the University of Chicago. You can see my team above. We're posing in front of the fountain at Wrigley Square, a part of Millennium Park in Chicago. This photo was taken at our Opening Day, in which we were honored to have dignitaries like Mayor Richard M. Daley, Governor Rod Blagojevich and Senator Dick Durbin speak. From left to right, my NKO team is Carmen, Julius, Laura, Hope, me, and Lindsay.
This is my brother and I preparing for my mom's surprise 50th birthday party. With the help of our dad, we flew down from Providence and Chicago, respectively, without her knowledge. Here, we're writing on clapperboards. (The party had a classic movie theme.) It was pretty funny, because my mom called me on the day of the party. I had to pretend that I was spending a lazy Saturday in Chicago, when I was actually getting things ready just miles away.
I included this photo to represent the future. This is me trying my hand at artwork at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, which is right outside Hampshire College. That's the college to which I decided to go next year, due to their awesome film program. I've already gotten in and deferred my admission, so this September, I'll officially be back in the life of scholarly pursuit!
Well, thus concludes my tour through my 2005. Hope all of you enjoyed yourselves! Happy Holidays!
