Hello again! Several months have gone by with no updates, however there were attempts! Take for instance this draft from January 22nd, 2021:

“I have been 18 for just over a month now, and nothing really changed except that I registered to vote for the next election while renewing my drivers license. My picture looks like a mugshot, by the way!

I am also happy to announce that I got accepted into UCA, so go Bears! It is close to both of my parents, so I will still be seeing a lot of my family during the year which will be nice. The only downside is that now I have a major case of senioritis: I have no motivation for work and I never want to go to school. You may think the latter is normal, however it has gotten to the point where I will unknowingly sleep past my alarm and wake up with less than 10 minutes to get ready in the morning, all the while contemplating if today will be the day I skip.

However I arrive, and I do my best. I recently finished ALL of my homework for the first time this year, nothing left to do this weekend, yet. It always feels as if there is more being piled on, and it is only this year that I am feeling a bit dragged down by it.

On another note, my dad has recently acquired 3 new rescue pit bulls, all siblings. they are young and very excited about having a home. My other 2 dogs, Ruby ( a sassy Rhodesian ridge back) and Duke (a Great Dane who is a big baby) aren’t too happy about having to share a yard together. For the mean time, Duke and Ruby are still inside dogs, while the 3 new pit bulls say in a large outside kennel during the day with multiple play breaks and sleep in my parent’s bathroom during the cold nights. My dad even hooked up a heater in the kennel, and the dogs are never away from it.”

The start of the end of senior year was Prom, a dance I thought I’d never have a date to. Thankfully we got to have a dance despite Covid and I can safely say that my boyfriend and I had the most perfectly matching outfits, and no one looked as good hehe.

While we were taking pictures, one little girl had to have a picture with me because she thought I was Elsa haha! Brunette Elsa is here, ladies and gentleman, and I am willing to be booked for birthday parties! That was really sweet, and after many pictures my date and I went to dinner at McAlisters. Honestly, I didn’t even want to go out to dinner, and if I were it was going to be ntohing fancy, so we went to the restauraunt with no line and good chips.

While the actual dance was fun, we did end up leaing early because the music wasn’t quite our taste.

The end of my senior year was quite busy, I had 3 AP tests, and I only feel okay about my AP Environmental Science exam. I guess that is a good thing, since that will be my major, but still. Waiting until July 21st for the exam results can not come any sooner.

Meanwhile, I got to relax a bit one weekend to watch my boyfriend along with our high school theatre class preform “Broadway’s Best”, a musical medley comprised of songs from disney movies as well as well known Broadway musicals. They had been working on this show since December and it was so much fun to watch what they had been working so hard on. I went to all 3 shows.

Then there was my graduation party as well as Baccalaureate, which is just a ceremony where select students and a teacher talk about senior year and our time as students from kindergarden until now. it was alright, and the girls who sang did a really good job. At the very end we all stood up and held a lit candle until a song was over and we blew them out and the ceremony was done. I myself had no clue what a Baccalaureate was so I’m sure a lot of people don’t know what it is either.

Finally May 18th was here, and I along with the classmates I grew up with walked the halls of our elementary school dressed in our caps and gowns before graduation practice. It was very strange to think of myself being that small at some point, looking for butterflies on the same playground they see everyday. I gave many high fives and the rivalry us seniors had between the two elementary schools was so much fun.

Graduation practice was hot and longwinded, however the weather that morning could not have forshadowed what it would become that night. Many got sunburns yet only a few needed their name pronunciation to be corrected, myself the latter.

After practice I immediately started to get prepped an ready, I had to rush because I was to eat with my Dad’s side in just a few hours. Spirits were high as the clouds began to get low, and the high heels I believed I would stand in for just an hour or so would get the wear in of their lives.

Even though my graduation started 10 minutes early, we only got through the speeches before it started pouring and us graduates had to be moved inisde. Somehow, even with a rainy forecast, our school administrators hadn’t actually planned out what would happen if we got truly rained out like we were. All of a sudden, everyone was told something different and everyone was shoved into the indoor practice field. From being anxious because I was graduating to being anxious that my family wouldn’t be able to watch me graduate in the case of a postpone to being anxious about the mass of people that mixed up our alphabetical order, I was an internal mess.

Only half of my family got to watch me watch across the bright green turf of the field and I was standing in those tall heels for 5 hours straight. I could barely walk back to my car and when I took off my shoes my toes immediately started cramping up. But my night was not over yet.

After coming back home to my mom, brother, and grandparents, I had less than an hour to decompress until the last event of the night, the finale of my senior year and the last time I would see most of my clasmates.

From 11pm-3am, we were at Fast Lanes, playing arcade games, bowling, and eating a lot of snacks. I even won a bowling match against all of the guys. I was feeling pretty good, other than the fact that after 1, the energy level started to dip. Honestly, we could have gone home at 2 instead of 3, but everyone was bussed there so we had to stay the full time.

It’s safe to say I slept a lot over the next couple of days. My grandparents were staying for the week so I took the weekend to spend some more time with them before they had to leave. I hadn’t gotten to see them in over 5 years so we had a lot of fun together and I even got to take my grandpa on a little adventure around town.

In the first days of June I went to UCA for orientation. It was there that I met up with not only my boyfriend but also my roommate! Although we were split up during activities the first day, we had a really fun time after we went back to our room where we actually got to talk more. We went on a search for the vending machine and didn’t check the one place that had it haha. The next day was the day we barely sat down, and by the time orientation was over I had walked 9,702 steps. I got my schedule, toured my dorm, visited all of my class rooms in all of their buildings as well as my boyfriend’s and the massive campus gym that is free for students. Watch out, we’re gonna be buff when we come back home for holidays!

And that pretty much brings us to the present. I’ve spent June going to Gulf Shores, swimming, and spending time with my boyfriend. Speaking of, the 22nd was our 1 year anniversary, and we celebrated by recreating our first date. It was very fun <3.

Summer is my favorite season, so I really want to appreciate it in it’s fullness before I pack up to head to college and have a whole new set of things to write about. I’ll try to keep up as my life changes, but I might just be having too much fun ;). Studying, of course haha!

Until the next time,

-Katelyn