A Thought

Because I had to get this out somewhere, and I decided Facebook notes might actually not be the place for it...

Which is ironic, since this is pretty much about noticing things on Facebook.

Basically...I pressed submit today. As of right now, my first college application has left my computer and zoomed across the country to the admissions office of my assumed number-one-choice university. Pretty monumental, huh? AND, even better, It's October 29 - many, many hours before the due date of November 1 will pass. So I have an early early decision application! Haha, cool. :D

Anyway.

As a normal teenager does, I went and changed my status on Facebook to something like "[My name] pressed submit".

Almost immediately, I got two notifications of two of my friends wishing me the best of luck. After I thanked them, I got a third notification of another friend doing the same. Now, two of these guys are already in college, and the other one is a junior (though he is trying to graduate early, so he's technically in the application process, too)...but then I checked other people's statuses.

A few people have similar status messages, the sort of "pressed submit" kinds. Then I noticed they all had similar responses as mine did - other people in our grade wishing them the best of luck.

It sort of struck me as...odd. Pleasantly odd, but still odd. I mean, I go to a fairly competitive school where a lot of kids treat each other as numbers to beat. Maybe I'd just gotten cynical, but I sort of always thought it was funny how you make all these friends, then have to beat out those same friends for the spot in the institution of your dreams. This is especially true with my school, which, although a public school, is very competitive and status-driven.

So it surprised me to see everyone being so supportive. Even people applying to the same school were giving each other words of encouragement, trying to calm each other's nerves. It's the total opposite of how I saw people treating the SAT - after scores came out, it seemed like all anyone wanted to do was compare, compare, compare.

But now, instead of comparing, we're encouraging.

...Okay, who are you people, and what have you done with my classmates? :)

I'd gotten sort of sick of my high school, but this sort of picked up my mood a bit. Maybe even in tough, stressful, super-competitive situations...we're all just nice people underneath the harsh, go-for-the-jugular exterior.

Or maybe it's because my computer decided to start playing a recording of Holst's Jupiter (from The Planets), which always makes me feel hopeful when I hear it (or, even better, play it in band). Or maybe it's because I had a fairly long chat (also on Facebook) with someone who graduated last year that I never really got along with but now am...?

I don't know.

But for whatever reason, despite a test in psychology tomorrow and a fair amount of English homework I have yet to do...

I'm...happy.

Bubbly, in fact.

...Yep. It's official.

Senior year OWNS junior year. :D