As you may have noticed, it’s been an entire month since my last entry, and there aren’t quite enough words to describe all that has happened. From the top, I can’t explain how glad I am that homecoming is over. Our team (I have to say “surprisingly” with regret) won. The dance lasted until midnight and yesterday’s marching band events lasted from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. The Rocket Regiment, our band, did well enough to make it into regionals, but the competition was stressful. The homecoming float I was in charge of may not have won first place in the parade, but it looked fairly good, and now I don’t have to worry about student council for a while.

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Colleges, scholarships, majors, future careers, and much more are all floating around in a pool of decisions, and it’s time for me to realize my opportunities and be decisive.

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¡Hola! It’s now the beginning of September, and I don’t quite dread anymore thinking about all my clubs and classes this year. In particular, Advanced Spanish IV is less worrisome. The entrance exam, which I was sure I would fail (at the end, I started making up fake words—in hindsight not something I would recommend) was apparently not as hard as I thought. The teacher said I did excellently and she only had a few suggestions of things to work on. The fact that the class is online through Kentucky Virtual High Schools is not being as much as a problem as I thought, and the teacher seems as nice as possible.

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I’ve been back to school for almost two weeks now, and so far, I can say that my senior year expectations were true to how the school year has started. There seems to be a new atmosphere around school, and maybe it’s just something I’m imagining, but the people I know all seem to be in a positive mood and are more relaxed about dealing with homework and usual daily obligations. This is refreshing, because we teenagers are usually characterized as complaining or apathetic.

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My experience as a Cuban immigrant brought me a very concrete idea of change after moving to the United States. I came to believe that any other life-altering event from then on would have little significance relative to the impact that had produced on me—if it wasn’t a huge change, then it was no change at all.

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So, it’s a few weeks later, and I’ve been busier than I expected. Marching band rehearsal for two and a half hours a day for three days a week, and something planned almost every Saturday. (Last weekend, we played at a St. Louis Cardinal baseball game—the mascot even borrowed my flute and pretended to play it!) I have a feeling that sooner or later yearbook will start taking up more than a class period, and student council elections will be held at the end of next week. Come to think of it, there’s an FCCLA (Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America) meeting tomorrow morning. Plus, two cousins of mine have transferred to Crittenden, and I’ve been trying to make them feel at home on top of everything else.

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The final year of high school is on the horizon, and as the sun sets on my high school years, the dawn of college will rise and probably be here before I even realize how quickly time has passed. My name is David Luhr, and I’m a senior at Granite Hills High School, in El Cajon, Calif. El Cajon is in the East County of San Diego, so a mixture of lifestyles is within a short drive from home. The big city life is downtown; the relaxed lifestyle is around the beach; the country lifestyle is around my home; and most any other style of living can be found in this Southern California locale. Even with this diversity readily accessible with a quick drive in my truck, I’m ready for a new experience in a different city, and college seems to be just what I desire.

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Err, hello there. The obligatory bio: My name is Mary Ann, and I’m a senior at Crittenden County High School in Marion, Kentucky. I like to think that I live in the true middle of nowhere; my home is 20 minutes away from a town of less than 4,000, and western Kentucky (and Kentucky itself, for that matter) isn’t well known for its large cities. Part of the reason why I’m looking forward to college is so I can have more than five restaurants to choose from without driving for 30 minutes, and the nearest bookstore won’t be an hour away. I moved here from eastern Kentucky when I was only four, so beyond vague memories it’s all I’ve known.

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Time has flown by. I’m already halfway through my internship. In five more weeks, I will be going back to Miami and having a few days of vacation before I return to school in mid-September.

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Not even in my wildest dreams when I was younger did I picture myself leaving my office IN MANHATTAN and walking back to my home IN MANHATTAN—not to mention encountering such stupefying things as the Empire State Building during my daily walk.

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