I'm gonna tell you the very funny story of how [name] got my number 'cause I don't think I told it yet. So anyways. I was at work, right, and I had just gotten off of my first time party hosting and I was like on a high, because party hosting is very much so superior to court monitoring at the trampoline park that I work at. So I'm like, "Oh my gosh. I have to go to court monitoring. I don't wanna do this." 'Cause party hosting you make tips, but you don't at court monitoring. So I'm like standing there. I'm bored. I have, like, one AirPod in, listening to whatever, thinking about all the things that I'd rather be doing. And then I get moved over to dodgeball. And they're doing like two on like seven. And there's this kid he gets out first every single time. And he comes over and he starts talking to me. And soon enough we're having a pretty good conversation like we were talking and talking and talking. And then, I get rotated, right? So I'm like, "Oh he's not gonna talk to me anymore, that sucks. Back to my music." And at the time I got rotated, he was like down getting a drink or whatever. So, I didn't even think that he would notice that I got rotated away, but he did, and he came and stood on top of tower, which is like this tiny little platform. And he stood there and he talked to me for like two hours and we had a really good convo. Some pretty fun life stuff. I know he wants to be an animator and he showed me some of his drawings, which they're honestly pretty cool. And I told him a little bit about me and how I wanted to go to musical theater and engineering, which is honestly so contradictory, but you know, it's fun. All there, all good. And, I dunno, all of his friends were like making fun of him, 'cause he stopped playing dodgeball to talk to some girl who was literally working.  And then, he like had to go. And I got rotated over to slides so he actually walked all the way out of the building and I was like, "Darn!" 'Cause all of his friends had been like telling him to get my number.…

So we thought we had until Tuesday or tomorrow to finish this entire presentation, but come Thursday afternoon when I'm on a field trip to Stratford, Canada -- by the way lovely trip -- the Spanish teacher posts an announcement in the Canvas that says, "Record a video of your skit tomorrow during class. I won't be there. We have substitute teachers." So I get on a group chat and I text all my group members, "Hey, we need to finish this script. I'm on a field trip. I'll work on it, but we all need to pitch in." Half of them were not on this field trip, they were at home after school and none of them did anything. I ended up writing the entire rest of the script by myself minus four lines from that one kid. I told him to write his own recruitment to communists speech because there was no way that I was writing that.  And I was just like, "What?" So we go into the presentation and I'm like, "Okay, everybody needs to have their lines memorized. We're presenting." Not only did they not have their lines memorized, they didn't even read the script. So we're filming it with a cheating teleprompter, which I think is totally wrong. And everybody's failing to remember what their lines are. It's complete and total chaos. And then people start reading the stage directions and I had to leave a little bit early to go to a choir thing to sing the national anthem for our spirit week. And we just turned in this horrendous video. So, of course, I'm gonna email the teacher and be like, "What the heck, can we please like have a chance to redo this 'cause my group members didn't read the script. I wrote the entire thing." And I can't afford to let my grade be affected by the fact that nobody else learned their lines 'cause it's a group presentation. So the Spanish teacher's initial response was, "Oh, yeah, tell your group members that they can perform it live on Tuesday." And I'm thinking, "What the heck, I don't want these people going after me." Like, of course, I'd rather have them go after me than me fail this project. But I said nicely in the original email, if she could please notify my group members about whatever decision she makes.…

Oh, my stand partner like, this -- so far for Orchestra this year. I've actually had him as a stand partner in 9th grade, I think, but it was just briefly in the beginning of the year before we had the chair test and we split up. But um, he's actually a pretty nice guy, like despite being brainrotted and having playful fights. I don't know.  There's always like a few friends I have, or acquaintances I have, that, like we're not on bad terms but we have playful fights and it's, it's fun. It's only select people with certain personalities. But you know, I'm just on top of whatever person I'm talking with. I don't know, I seem to act different with every single person. But that's that and so we were hitting each other because um, because playful fighting needs to involve some physical, um, injuri- -- not injuries, physical components where you have to hit -- oh my gosh, that sounds so wrong. Um, so playful fighting includes some smacking each other with bows or rods, and then um, yeah. I think he hit me a bit too hard. And he said sorry, and I'm like, “Oh my gosh, you're actually not a bad person!" But you know, yeah. It's always interesting when I have like a person or one of my friends who usually is not that serious, but they still like, they're still a nice person so they apologize. Well, hm. Okay, scrap that. So it's always interesting how there are people who like usually you would -- wouldn't see them being like, I guess, vulnerable or like some sort of thing like that. Cuz like in that -- in my stand partner's case, he's always so unserious. And then I have another friend. She's always very serious and then -- but when it comes to like actual stuff happening, they know when to apologize and that -- that really amazes me. Like no one tries to interact with these people. They're nice people. I mean, they're strange people. Like, stand partner? Complete Gen Alpha terminology in his brain, and my other friend, she's like super into science. Both of them, not your typical average high schoolers, I think. But like at the end of the day, they're good people and that's what I like about my friends. They're all good people at heart.

So there's this one guy with a water bottle. And then -- so he finds me, like, way later. He's like, "Did you see my water bottle? Did you take it?" Because he, he thought maybe I took it, but, you know, I didn't. And what actually happened -- well, actually, rewind. So, then, um, me -- or, one of my friends and I, we were picking up trash around the place and then we went to that tree we sat underneath earlier, and we saw the water bottle was, like, stuck in the tree. So then, we got it off and then, while walking around, we met another one of our classmates, so we handed it to him. And then he ended up handing it to some other guy. But that some other guy -- so that guy that got handed the water bottle -- was the one who hid the water bottle in the first place. So, you know, once the original owner of the water bottle came, he's, like, basically chasing that guy around. That was, that was hilarious. Maybe, like, not -- it was probably not funny for the guy who lost his water bottle -- or briefly lost his water bottle, but it was hilarious to watch.

So the first day at during like our Spain trip -- like Europe trip, but, yeah, I like got blisters because I was just walking around, and I don't know what I did, but then throughout the course of the trip, like, then it slowly got bigger and bigger and bigger, and like my heels were like bleeding through. And I had, like, white shoes, and they're still on the back of my Vans. Like, they look like a crime scene, it's kind of funny. And I remember on the ride home, I had -- like the flight home, I had to take off my shoes. Like I, I kept them on, and I wasn't like the weirdos who like put their like nasty grippers up or anything, but like it hurt so much, and I had like three pairs of white socks that we had to throw out because they were all bled through, and we couldn't get it out either.

Over the summer, I went with my mom to Boston and that was kind of the only trip we went on. It was mainly a trip to tour colleges: Harvard and MIT. Initially when I went in, I thought Harvard was going to be cool like the movies and that I was gonna hate MIT because it was gonna be all complete techie nerds. And don't get me wrong. I am a techie nerd. I love math. I love chemistry, and I think I want to go into engineering. But my persona isn't like, "techie nerd” persona, it's more of a "I'm a theater kid" persona. So I wasn't expecting to find my people there.  So I go walk around Harvard and I hated it. It was so like, I don't know, it just felt like made for speeches and everybody there who you were asking like, “Why Harvard? Why do I want to go to Harvard?” they were all like “Duh, because it's Harvard!” And I don't want to go to a school just because it has a fancy name. I hate the corporate branding. Like, honestly, I kind of don't want to go to Michigan or State because I don't want to be branded by that school, you know?  But the difference when I walked around at MIT with pretty low expectations, is I found people who were actually my people. Instead of being totally techies, both of my tour guides were majoring in some sort of engineering, mechanical and chemical, and I'm gonna major in chemical probably. And then they were both theater minors! If you wouldn't think going to MIT that there would be people who are minoring in theater, but there they are and that's something that I want to do! So, I don't know. I was just excited. To see that people like me going to school like that, it's just cool. When you find a way that you can fit into a group, it's pretty fulfilling. So, I hope I can go there because I think I might find my people.

Like look, I understand having to go to school. And that's – I think that school up to high school should be mandatory, but I don't think that college is for everyone. And I don't think that people who don't go to college are therefore dumb, that's not like that at all. Or I don't think that it's a waste that they didn't go to college. Because sometimes college just isn't needed honestly. And I don't think that people are just failures cuz they didn't go. You can still do amazing things, even if you didn't go to college. You know, that's another thing with all those success stories I keep hearing. They're all like, oh, he didn't go to college, but he had a super successful business. Okay, and?  Like, going to college does not guarantee that you will be successful. Going to college is not some magical cure that's going to make you – “Oh my gosh, now I’m the most magical person in the world, now I can do anything I ever want." No. It just puts you into student debt for goodness' sake and yeah, you'll learn some things, yeah, you'll make some friends but like at the end of the day. Are you really gonna be happier? And that's the thing. That's why I don’t even look forward to having a job anymore. That's not even like the next step in my life. My next step right now is retiring. I don't wanna have to work up. I don't, here's the thing. I'm terrified that I’ll one day have a job that I just hate more than anything and it's not like I can ask to go back to school either because that wouldn't be fair. And so what I pick first year is what it's going to be like for the next few decades and that's crazy to think about and I'm just terrified that I'll hate my job.

But once I went fishing. And there's like – apparently there's flies that live on the water. But like I went fishing once, it was like 8 A- – no, not even 8 A.M., it was like 6 A.M. And we got like swarmed right? Like there are bugs everywhere and there must have been like a hundred bugs just on me. And then – but you know at first I just, like, started killing them. And then eventually I had like so many dead bugs on me, I just kind of gave up. And then the dude who owns the boat, like, he just seemed fine with the flies, you know? Like he was like just acting like they weren't even there so I figured it was normal. But oh my God, I hated it so much. I hate bugs. So I hate it when it's like a hundred of them on me. Like afterwards, I took a shower, I did laundry and like – oh, I hated it. I, I hated it. I don't like fishing.

So on Mackinac Island, there are these carriages that you can rent. And you can drive your own carriage. It's pretty cool. So we've never done it before because it's kind of expensive, but since Mackinac Island was our big family vacation this year, my parents were like, "Let's go all out. We'll do pretty much anything you guys want." And we're like, "Let's rent the carriage." So we go to rent the carriage and we have this horse named Jim. And he seems like a pretty good horse. They told us that he was supposed to be the calmest once since my dad had never driven a carriage before, and they showed us the route that we were supposed to take. So we're driving around in the carriage, and it's pretty fun. It's not something that we get to do a whole bunch. And then we get back by the cemetery in the woods where there's a whole bunch of carriage traffic, and it's kind of by that butterfly garden. And Jim the horse decides that he does not want to go left. So there are two paths at this intersection. You can go straight, or you can turn left. And they told us, "Oh, make sure you go left 'cause if you go straight, there's not supposed to be any carriage traffic outside of the Grand Hotel people on that trail." So we turned. Jim looks like he's going left, and he veers off down the path straight. So my dad goes "Whoa, Jim!" because that's what you're supposed to do to stop it. And Jim stops for a second. He looks back over his well, it's not really his shoulder, but like what would be his shoulder if horses had shoulders. He looked at us, and then he just keeps going, and my dad goes "Whoa, Jim!" and Jim doesn't stop. He does a u-turn! And the number one rule for this was no u-turns and after we did that u-turn, I could see why because the carriage almost flipped upside down during the u-turn, which by the way, was not even on the road, it was in the middle of the woods. And then my brother because he's eight and he's scared, jumps off the carriage, and we think he's gonna get run over by Jim who is like sprinting through the woods. My mom couldn't…

But what was really cool about our hotel was that usually -- 'cause there's five of us. And me and my sis- -- three sisters, or, um two sisters, we all share a bed. We can all fit on one bed. But, at that time I was actually sick with just like a cold, and my parents, they were, were kind of thinking about how they could have us sleep in one bed if I'm kind of sick.  But -- so we walk in and there's two beds. My parents are like, "Where's the third bed? Is it a pull-out couch?" But we didn't see any pull-out couches. There was just two beds. So there was a sink, a really nice, really look- -- expensive looking sink, there was a shower, there was a bathroom, and there was two beds, and then there was just this flat wall with like these shelves in the, in the walls, which was pretty, pretty neat. So just this empty space. And then the guy that was driving the golf cart, he was helping us out, he was like, "Oh!" So he moved the tables out of the way where that empty space was. And then, you know what he started doing? He started opening up the wall and the bed came down from the wall into a bed! And I was like, "This is my first time seeing this type of bed!" And I was so excited. And it was actually bigger than both of those two beds. And that was so cool.