So, I really intended to write this entry a week ago. More like a week and a half, at this point. But you know how sometimes you’re just like “man, I don’t really feel like writing essay this today,” so you put it off and before you know it’s the night before that 20 page paper is due and you still put off starting it until like 11, but it’s sort of better that way? Yeah. Sort of the same thing here.
Last Tuesday was the 1 year anniversary of the start of
HSHSP, which was probably the greatest 7 weeks of my life to date. Seriously. I met the most awesome people ever, became about 11 times nerdier, and met people who could talk about Prufrock and play a mad game of ultimate and walk 6 miles through sketchy neighborhoods on Sunday afternoons (Judith, it is still totally your fault) and make s’mores over a hobo bonfire on the top of a parking garage. And I’m still not sure that last one was legal.
And I could probably go on for ages with inside jokes and how awesome all those people are, but that’s actually not the point of this entry, though they totally deserve one of their own. The point is that a year ago last Monday, I could not possibly have imagined everything that’s happened in my life this last year. While recent me was starting my first day at Van Andel, year ago me was packing for MSU and trying to learn names off of facebook and being concerned that I couldn’t tell Asian people apart, really. And I'm not sure that's entirely PC, but whatevs.
Had you told that version of me that I would in fact get everyone’s names down eventually, even be able to tell Jarey and Roger apart within the first week, I would have laughed. Had you told me that I would meet some of the most incredible people ever there, that my experiment would ultimately not end up nearly as great as it was supposed to, that my
cell lines would get contaminated and the machine would die before the end of the summer, I would have been incredibly disappointed in the then-future me. If you had told me that
COREX actually would unite my senior class and that I’d actually enjoy being in high school going into senior year, I would have called you quite ridiculous. If you had told me that I’d be a
sailing recruit at MIT and
get a job at PetSmart of all places, that I’d
clean up goat pee there and learn about every brand of dog food in existence, I’d be close to telling you to shut up. If you had gone so far as to tell me that I would have a 2 hour interview for MIT and that I would love every minute of it, that I would write an entire essay about my fear of closed shower curtains, that that essay would help me get into MIT early, and not just get in but
called personally by Ben Jones at that same PetSmart job, I would have laughed you out of the room and our conversation would have stopped right there. I would never have been able to believe that I would be on the MIT blogs, not once or even twice, but
three whole times, that I would get
that tube in the mail, that I would be a facebook administrator of my MIT class’s group and talk to people from all over the world thanks to that, that I’d go to CPW and have people say “oh, you’re THAT Shannon,” that I’d in fact catch senioritis, that I’d love Calculus, that I'd fall for a best friend the summer before leaving for college, that I’d completely blow off an AP test, (haha, screw you, Econ), or that I would ever casually correspond with the photo editor of Newsweek regarding pictures for a story potentially talking about what is now referred to as “The PetSmart Story.” None of it. I would have thought you mad.
Because year ago me couldn’t have called any of that, even in my wildest most optimistic dreams. I just wanted to be able to tell Asian faces apart and get my transfections to work. I was terrified of not getting into MIT, dreaded going back to high school, and had no idea what I’d be doing a year from then because so much of it was completely in the air. The rest of my life was like a bathtub hidden behind a menacing pink shower curtain- all I needed was the courage to open it. (You better get that allusion, Ben Jones.)
And as the one year anniversary of HSHSP rolled around last week, all of this really hit me. This last year has been beyond anything I could have ever even dreamt of. My best case scenario was getting into MIT regular decision. Maybe UChicago. I didn’t know how to take an integral and I’d never read Kurt Vonnegut and I’d never even BEEN to the East Coast. There are just sometimes when I practically feel the need to pinch myself, because this life that I’m living is just too good to be true.
And if this much has changed just in one year, I can only imagine what I’ll be thinking a year from now.
My guess:
year-ago me, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.
Comments (4)
Your sentiments can only be echoed a million times over.
LOL, I got it.
If you had told me that I would've gotten into MIT - that I would've taken a gap year, and even be *glad* that I did - that I would've gained certain friends and lost others... I wouldn't have believed you.
I was just looking through my photos right now (getting iPhoto event categories to be right rather than jumbled up), and I realized just how amazing these past 5 years have been.
I meant to respond to this like last week, but Japan's surprisingly sketchy internet connections have been problematic. I think I can pretty much say that I know exactly what you're talking about (except my life was significantly less exciting and had way fewer Petsmart references). And it's pretty awesome. Has this been the best year of your life? Because it has been for me (6th grade was a close second, but hobo s'mores beat Outdoor Ed out of the water/forerst).