In which I talk about THINGS LEFT UNSAID and how it feels to be a high school graduate

Posted by Raven M on 4:44 AM in

I graduated last Friday.

I meant to do a blog about it but every time I sat down to type it, I got this extremely giddy feeling and decided to break out into dance instead. That isn't something you guys would want to see, because I am a HORRIBLE dancer, but that's how happy I was. There were a few tears of joy along the way but guys....I'M A HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE. That alone is something I'm proud of, not because I didn't think I would graduate, but because I made it through a really tough year.

Some people are lucky enough to have wonderful senior years in which they get to spend time partying with their friends and making so their schedules are similar and all of that kind of fun stuff while people like me...aren't so lucky. The school that I spent my freshman, sophomore, and junior year at closed. It hurt to see my school die...because if a building could actually die...that one did. All of the life, all of the hope drained out of it, once everyone heard we weren't going to make it another year. I remember my ninth grade year...there were so many people there, and it actually felt like a high school. As the years went on, we lost teachers, book supplies, and kids started doing poorly on their test.

There were a lot of meetings, in which my principal called me and a few other high-achieving students down to her office to talk to members of the school board. They kept asking us how we were getting good grades, how we were doing so well in a school that...sucked. That wasn't their word choice but the school, even though I loved my teachers and my friends, did suck. When your English teacher in ninth grade tells you that she can't teach you, then you know something is wrong. Well, anyways, we couldn't give any of the adults who were asking us questions any answer. For me, I can't not (excuse the double negative) do well. I want to be a lawyer. I want to make the Dean's list, get impeccably good grades, and go to a prestigious law school...which means I can't slack. Ever. It's just the way I'm wired, and I can't help that. I'm not the smartest person in the world...don't get me wrong, but I do work hard at everything I do, even if I fail, I keep working hard. So that's what I told them, and even though it wasn't something they wanted to hear, even though they were hoping to get a formula or some secret recipe to make other students in the school do better, they didn't get it.

And then people started leaving. You might ask why I didn't leave, and to tell you the truth...I did. My mom wanted to put me into another school, but with the way the school system is here (not sure about other cities) you have to go to your neighborhood school, even if it's bad and you're not learning anything, you have to go. So, I was stuck for three years, in a school that I liked but didn't enjoy. I made a lot of friends, however, and met people that accepted me for who I was, which isn't something you find everywhere. When the last day of junior year came...it hit me, just before I was getting ready leave that building for the last time in my life. Tears of anger and sadness and so many other emotions that weren't really positive started streaming down my face, and I didn't know what was going to happen to me senior year. I didn't know where I was going to go, because now there were two high schools on the side of town that I lived in, and neither of them were better schools than the one I had went to. So...that summer, my mom searched around for places to live. And at the last minute, someone finally called her back.

We moved.

I don't like my new neighborhood at all. People here are mean and we get looked at funny everywhere we go, but I got a chance to go to a school that got way more funding than my old school did. A school where the kids didn't have to worry about closings, or losing teachers or not having clubs...they had SO MANY of them. It took awhile for me to fit in, because I'm so shy and people there weren't really looking for a new friend, so...I can honestly say I only know 10 people out of the 342 seniors that I graduated with. So it wasn't the best year of my life, but I made it, guys. Some people might not see a high school diploma as something amazing, but I have to appreciate it more with all that I had to do just so I could get it.

Now, in a few months, I'll be a college freshman. Yesterday, I went up to my university (I have to get into the habit of calling it that) to put together my schedule and it is the BEST SCHEDULE OF ALL SCHEDULES. I have a Creative Writing class (squee), two Psych classes, a Film & Arts class that is supposed to go in depth in how both affect people, a Stats class, and there is another class that I have that I can't remember...but I AM SO excited. I'm a little sad because I will be leaving home, scared because I don't know who my roommate is yet, and I don't know if it'll be anyone who will know how to take my geekiness. If they're not a Doctor Who fan then we're going to have some serious problems.

So, I feel great about being a high school graduate. There are buttload of other words I could use, but I think this smile pretty much sums it up:

Now to talk about Things Left Unsaid. I started this project last summer and gave up on it after not knowing where to go with it. I also thought that it was sucky and that I should just scrap it. Then I told myself, hey, you're almost finished with this thing...SO FINISH IT. And that's what I'm going to do this summer. I reached 40K two days and so I have 15,000 words to write. I have no idea how I'm going to end it, or if I'll go over my goal, but I can't wait to type THE END. Once I do that, then I will have finished my first project and I will have proven to myself that I can do this writing thing. I can. I can. I can.

Though sometimes I feel like I can't do it, and when I feel like that I contemplate writing a werewolf into the story just so it can eat all the characters a la Little Red Riding Hood and be done with it that way, but I talked myself out of doing that...even though I was tempted to do it. Wouldn't that make a great ending though? You have to admit it would be unexpected. Like...all of a sudden people are arguing in the kitchen, throwing flour at each other, and then a werewolf jumps through the window like that scene in the one episode of Vampire Diaries, gobbles them up, transforms into a human, goes on with his life until the super hot painter guy in the story reveals that he's vampire who eats red paint so that he doesn't have to drink blood.

Okay, okay. I'm kidding.

I just can't wait to be done with it. It needs to go through some extreme revisions before I beg people to beta-read it for me. And if I'm lucky, I might get to query on my 40th birthday.

Here's the cover I made for it a long time ago:

So wish me luck. I am definitely going to need it to finish TLU. And my birthday is next Thursday (I'm going to be 18...yikes). So expect a post from me then.

Thanks for reading! <3