What a week...

Hi all.

I haven't been posting because it's been the most momentous and surreal week of my life. I don't know if I can condense everything I've been feeling into a blog post, but I'll give it a try.

-I FINISHED high school! I've realized that h.s. graduation is an even bigger deal than most because we're not just celebrating high school, we're celebrating the last 12 years of school and how much we've grown in the last 12 years. Anyway, that's how our parents see it.

-I aced my last math final, which was a big deal because math has always been the hardest/most frustrating subject for me. Endings are important -- to finish strong is to celebrate the whole journey. I know that I walk away from DHS stronger than ever, academically, emotionally, in every way.

-I sang in my last DHS choral concert! Before any more time goes by I need to thank everyone in Chorale for everything. Especially last year, if I had a bad day I knew I could always find a safe, happy, musical refuge in the chorus room. And there is a lot of truth to the music we've done. It's not just music, it's an image of what can happen for us. I knew that last night, singing "When You Believe" after this week's big news (more on that later)

-I went to my senior prom! Andrew, if you're reading this I'm still so honored that you went with me. I'm so glad we met at Formal '08 because everything started looking up for me after that night (and not just because you're tall). I used to be a lot less confident, kind of guarded off from people for a while, and you helped change that.

-I FINALLY got into BRANDEIS!!!!!! It really may be the most tumultuous love story I've had so far- I fell in love with the school last July, got deferred ED in December, got waitlisted in April, pretty much accepted the fact that I wouldn't get in, but held on a little longer through May, and now I'm going there! If there is one quote that sums up everything I've been through, it would be "If you will it, it is no dream." It was pretty close to being only a dream, but I never stopped hoping, and here it is.

-And now, I am a proud graduate of DHS! Last night I noticed something funny: none of the seniors cried at graduation. Of course there was some whining about the abnornally cold weather (seriously, what the heck?) but the kids were all laughing and celebrating. This is because we're ready for whatever comes next. We're ready to move on and enjoy the summer. It's time to go, and it's all good.

Learning by Going

Today I realized I'd better get to memorizing my final poem for English if I don't want to end the year in total embarrassment. So I went through the class anthology and reread all the poems from this year, a beautiful experience in itself. I came to one that I never gave much attention to -- "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke. There's one line that he repeats, "I learn by going where I have to go" which is exactly how I feel about this time in my life.

I guess we all learn by going where we have to go. No one really knows what they are capable of doing until after they've found the courage to do it, and it's the things we do that change our lives. I didn't know I could live away from home until I went to camp. I didn't know I could make my way through high school until I looked back on how far I've come. I didn't know I was so ready to live on my own until I went to Wash U. I didn't know I was capable of climbing the high ropes course at school until I was standing there at the top. I didn't know it was possible to feel someone else's experiences as deeply as my own, until I found that kind of connection.I've learned so much by going, and I've reached to a great place in my life. But I still have things to learn as I go off on my own. Last week, someone stole my phone at school. I turned my back on it for no more than a couple minutes in the courtyard and now it's gone. I guess that's another case of learning by going where you have to go -- learning a lesson the hard way. I guess this was a case of me being too trusting. But again I learn by going -- taking a detour to somewhere I didn't want to end up, but now I know how to avoid it.

Anyway, tomorrow is my LAST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL!!!!! In 7 hours and 4 minutes (but who's counting?) I will be an unofficial DHS graduate! I'm sure plenty of tears will come later, but right now I'm riding a wave of euphoria. Class of 2011, we made it!

Stay classy.
Rachel

"The beginning seemed so long ago, I thought these times would never end..."

Hello all,

Now that my metaexploratory essay is FINALLY done and StageWrite/Troubadour are in hibernation until next year, I thought I'd take up blogging again. I need somewhere to express myself, so here it is.

Spring has always been my favorite season. There's something about April and May that always reenergizes me -- a friend once told me I must be solar powered or something. It's looking and feeling more and more like summer, and nature finally got the memo that spring is here. But this year, it's hard to explain how I feel with this season coming. Part of the beauty of spring is seeing the life cycle unfold -- not just nature but another graduating senior class, another year finished. But this year my class is the one walking across that stage. I've been itching to get out of this town for so long -- don't get me started on Deerfield -- but now that it's actually time, I'm fighting a serious case of nostalgia. I know I'm definitely not the only one... Last week at Friday night services when the seniors were honored, it really hit me. I'm trying to get used to the idea that half of the senior class will be around for High Holidays and the other half will be scattered all over -- even weirder, I'm in the second group. And now I'm wondering how will we move on from the present without losing touch with everything and everyone? I know it should be easier now with texting, Skype, even visiting each other, but it's still a change. But "nothing endures but change" -- high school seemed like such an adjustment 4 years ago, but now it seems second nature. Our sense of reality changes as we change. So in case you're reading this and don't go to DHS, this is my senior column in the school newspaper -- it sums up everything, good and bad but mostly good. I hope this leaves you with a little inspiration.


How do you measure 4 years in a life?

Now that the last 4 years are coming to a close, I have the familiar urge to reflect on where I’ve been. How do people measure the journeys they’ve taken? Is it some equation for the distance traveled and the passage of time, or is it the changes and self-realization inside us? Maybe it is a little of all.

How do I define my journey through high school? I define it by the ways that I have grown. Somehow I went from that freshman racing to X-hall with only a minute left before class, to becoming the person who my freshman brother looks to for advice. I’ve tried new opportunities that I couldn’t have imagined four years ago. Most of all, I define these years by the ways I have learned to think and question.

But, the truth is, none of this has been easy. Some things came easily and some not. I was grateful for those that inspired me, and I took my lumps with grace, I hope, on those bumpier moments. On the first day of AP Senior English, when we all had to memorize a poem that was meaningful to us, I chose “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou. I relate to her words of empowerment. The refrain “But still, like air, I’ll rise” is what I live by, and personifies my resilience and the resilience required by all throughout high school.

I learned how tempting it is to let others define our success by a mere number, a grade point average. But the truth is, a number can never be an accurate representation of who we really are.

High school should be a journey of learning, but to all of us, there were many times it felt like an endless race. Though we don’t’ like to admit it, there was one goal, to get to the next step. We often took the safest path doing what was required to reach a goal, fighting to get every point possible to earn the highest grade, instead of learning for the sake of learning.

Perhaps that is my first personal goal as I look to college: to sample, learn, explore, and grow. After I took 3 AP tests in one week, I had an epiphany: life is like an AP test. We can never be 100% sure what is coming, we can only be prepared and do our best. This moment of insight came from having the chance to think freely. Thinking freely is a risk that needs to be taken, I know that in my classes and my life, moments of growth can only spring from courageous looking within and taking that intellectual or emotional risk.

So, what have I really learned in high school? I know that I still love learning. I learned the hard way that math and chemistry were not my strongest subjects, but nonetheless I persevered and still find chemical reactions and sine waves fascinating. But, I leave high school on a high note, knowing what I am capable of. And, I hope that my skills, determination and perseverance will be recognized and appreciated in the future.

So this is my final advice to the Class of 2011 and to future classes: make the journey mean something. Live so you can measure your life in the ways you made a change. And “like air you too shall rise.”

Welcome back

To anyone who’s either putting off homework or bored enough to be reading this- welcome to my blog. (Deja vu. I tried to start a blog before, but I was so busy that it wasn’t creative at all, and my 54 profile views were all from me lol)

So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about myself in terms of college essays. I thought I’d start by explaining the title of my blog- Chasing Cars. I know it’s an amazing romantic song, but it’s the story behind it that gets me. Apparently the singer of Snow Patrol was trying to get a girl’s attention and his father said to him, “You’re like a dog chasing a car, you’ll never catch it and even if you did, you wouldn’t know what to do with it”. Now that is an incredibly cynical thing to say about love, but I’ll come back to that some other time.

What I’m getting at is that those words have an impact on me. I’m a writer and a thinker, and those are my most important and unexplainable traits. I can never explain why I feel so alive when I discover the emotion in a poem, or when I think about some philosophical thought, or when I learn about anything of meaning. This is why I watch movies and listen to songs that I know will make me cry, because they take me to another place. Basically, I’m searching for meaning in my life. I’m not content just walking through the motions of my life, I want to know about them. I want to feel everything. I want to reach those moments of total clarity. I’m trying to find this meaning by studying English/history/philosophy/a little bit of everything when I get to college, no matter what people say about its uselessness. So I guess you can say my search is like chasing cars. Maybe I won’t know what to do when I finally get there, but I won’t stop trying.

I think I’ll call it a night. Sweet dreams everyone.
Rachel