Ingrid på vei ut : april 2014

Life is weird. You think that the IB has hit you hard, that you can't get any more stressed, and then it hits you even harder. You think you can't appreciate the people around you any more than you already do, and then they do something that makes you love them more. As graduation for the seniors is approaching, now with only 43 days to go, the bittersweet is hitting me harder and harder. The school is starting to prepare us to be seniors next year by dropping a ton of work on us all at once, and I'm so ready for May 26, when our exam period starts. Here, let me give you a sample of what we have to do before that:

SAT
World Lit Paper (1500 words)
Research Investigation (1500 words on an aspect of theatre we're unfamiliar with)
TOK presentation (Which matters for about 40% of our final grade, I think)
Biology Internal Assessment (Self-Designed Lab)

On top of that, there's the other schoolwork, and for me there's also work with the yearbook next week, as well as our production of "Annie Get Your Gun" this weekend. It's a comedic musical about the sharpshooter Annie Oakley (who was a real person) and the tempestuous romance between her and Frank Butler. I play Charlie Davenport, a fairly sassy character, and I'm also prop mistress. It's really, really stressful, but it's also pretty great. Even though we've had a few hiccups (leading to minor freak-outs from our director) I think we're gonna put on a couple of amazing shows. Here's a photo of the stage, yay.

I'm already feeling somewhat melancholy about this year, and already sort of missing the seniors. We had our first Community Meeting without them today, and the chapel was very empty. Still, even though I don't want them to leave, I am excited to meet the new people that are coming next year. But the seniors being gone means we're going to be seniors! That's a scary thought. Among the seniors are some of my best friends and biggest support people. It's amazing how much care exists here. I am so grateful for everything these people have taught me and I'm not sure how what's going to happen when I don't get to laugh, love and learn with them every day. I have a feeling next year is going to be equally great and challenging, just very different. As I'm sure you can tell, I really don't know how to feel about this.

But hey, the future is uncertain and not even real yet, so let's not talk about that, aight? The present is real, and to a certain extent so is the past, so let's talk about that. I kind of disappeared for four months and although a lot of that can be attributed to the IB some great things also happened. We slept on top of Cowpie for the eclipse that happened. There have been some photo shoots. A senior and I went to my best friend's house for Spring Break, and then we went to Las Vegas. That was really neat. We had Junior Senior, which is just like prom. We've gone to swim in the creek, and we've run through the sprinklers a lot. A small group of students and faculty went up to Hopi for a Work Weekend, which was absolutely fantastic. Fire Run (the entire school running half-naked around a huge bonfire, hollering our hearts out, and the juniors getting their senior rings) happened. Bonding and cuddling on the Quad in front of the dining hall has been a frequent occurrence. Senior Wills were hung up in the Dining Hall, and they were both touching and hilarious. Basically, spring happened. Here, have some photos. Oh, no! Looks like this is one of the "Blog Post With Thousand Photos" happening, sorry about that.