Prom kind of sucks, guys.

 Around this time across the country, high school students are gearing up for prom, the annual demonstration of awkwardly posed pictures and dancing to songs no one actually enjoys. To commemorate this tradition, I am going to be sharing three different prom stories, even though I'm fairly certain the only thing less interesting than one's own prom, are the prom stories of someone else. Deal with it.
~2007~
The year I was a sophomore in high school, the night of prom that spring was spent in my family room in the company of my best friend. Her brother was my sister's date, and we spent the evening imagining the pair of them being much more adorable than they actually were. A hefty chunk of the night was used to build, without question, the best blanket fort I have ever made in my entire life (which is saying something). After this was completed, we watched "Finding Neverland" inside it, and you can ask anyone, that is undoubtedly one of the absolute best movies to watch while being inside a blanket fort. The next morning we were woken up by my mom bringing us breakfast from McDonald's which is a completely terrific way to begin a day, if you just don't think about what you just ate.
~2009~
This was the year I actually went to my Senior prom, and the whole experience was entirely predictable. I mean, I loved it, but really nothing happened that doesn't happen at every prom. I tried to coax not-serial-killer smiles from my boyfriend at the time (he struggled with those), I comforted my friend through hearing a song that reminded her of her ex, and I saw people I hated grind against other people I hated while me, with my posse of band friends danced awkwardly on the periphery. Totally standard. After the dance, the group of us went back to my boyfriend's house, where we all fell asleep watching "Mama Mia," a film choice I to this day do not understand.
Can we actually back up a bit and discuss how I was asked? Of course we can, this is my blog.
For some reason my high school boyfriend for whatever reason always decided to ask me important questions when I was looking my worst. He asked me to Homecoming in the fall right before an all-day marching band competition at our school, when I was in sweatpants and a t-shirt. He asked me to be his girlfriend on the bus after our marching band played a show, so I was in disgusting black overalls and that year's show shirt (which happens to look like two stick figures doing it, but I digress) and my hair was plastered to my scalp with sweat. I thought he was going to ask me to prom when he volunteered to be the announcer for one of my softball games that spring. That would have made sense, because at my school, asking someone to homecoming and prom usually involves a bit of spectacle. For example, a friend of mine asked my other friend to prom by putting it on a slide that was part of a lecture in their AP Physics class. His dad was actually the teacher of that class and it sounded hilarious and kind of awkward for everyone involved, and that was the one day I was sorry I lacked the mental capacity to be in that class. Anyway, instead of doing it over the speaker at my game, he waited a few more days and set up a cute scavenger hunt in my house that ended with him asking. And that would have been totally fine, if it hadn't happened immediately after I returned home from the most grueling softball practice I had all year. I was exhausted and sweaty and frankly not in any kind of mood for that. We ran a lot at practice. I do not like to run. He had no way of knowing this would be the case, but still.
Also, about an hour after this happened, I went to have coffee with another guy friend of mine, who tried to get me to go to prom with his friend. Because that is my life, apparently. 
~2011~
To finish off our semester in London, the program I was with decided to throw us a "prom" on one of our last nights there. Unfortunately, this was planned to take place a few hours after our final projects were presented, but these went far too long over the time limit they were alotted. This caused all of us to scramble home, throw on our H&M dresses, quickly pre-game what we could, and head back, all in about forty minutes. The rest of the night consisted of taking pictures, eating a bit, drinking more, and my friend Emily showing off Greg to the entirety of our program, including our director who said he looked, "very British." The night got slowly more ridiculous, cumulating with our director singing the entire 8-minute version of "American Pie," then telling the room how she wanted to marry one of the more charming guys in our program. So another typical American prom, really.


I just realized the first story was from graduation night that year, not prom. Doesn't matter: same people, similar shinanigans, you get the picture.

It's Called YouTube, Not MeTube... for a good reason.

Throughout my freshman year in college, I made YouTube videos that I then took down a year later. Despite my attempts to make them interesting and hilarious, they came out uncomfortable and kind of sad. A few days ago I finally took the initiative to go through the footage I shot for them I still had on my computer, and deleted it. Still, I did put a fair amount of work and time into them, so I put together the least embarrassing parts from all of them into a "highlights reel" which is a term that frankly gives me far, far too much credit. What follows are the only clips I could salvage that don't make me want to hide in a cupboard, brushing off spiders and sadly playing with old-fashioned soldier toys. I'm not sure about the execution of that Harry Potter joke.
I choose to leave these clips without their context. I think it adds to the whole thing I have going on here.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Graduation Is A Menace

Yesterday, four of my best friends graduated college, and I'm conflicted about it. On one side, I'm so incredibly proud of all of them. Allison and Paige completed an Honors Thesis apiece, which included hours of research, looking at ancient seeds under a telescope, and gluing centuries-old ceramics back together. Emily completed an internship that greatly improved a section of the university's library. Alyssa put an incredible amount of work into completing her degree, and already is the best at what she plans to do. It's been a long year of unrealistic assignment expectations and horrible professors, and I know we're all glad to finally have it over with.

Still, I'm just so sad they're leaving. We all met and lived studying abroad last year and they're a major piece of why going to London was probably the best decision I've made. Having only known them for a year and a half, they are just as, maybe closer to me than other friends I've known for years. The prospect of going back to school next fall without them is very sad for me. It's hard to think that I'll never grab lunch with Emily after my Legal History class every Tuesday and Thursday, that I won't laugh at Allison and Paige's disgusted faces when Alyssa talks about infants.

It seems that my life for the past few years has been full of endings. I first left Minnesota, which I've written about before and which was extremely difficult for me. Then my time in London ended, obviously, and I thought that my time there would be the happiest I would be for a while. But this past year spent with the friends I met there was full of incredible joy with the best people I know. And now that is completed as well, which just sucks. People always tell you know that it is so much easier today to keep in touch with friends post-graduation because of social media and technology, and that's true, but not to the extent students are lead to believe. Out of my friends from high school, who I thought I would never stop talking to, I even somewhat regularly speak to just one. And that's only because we're both active on Twitter and it's easy for us to just post snide responses to each other. (That's just kind of how our relationship is- once in high school a friend in German class told us she liked to just sit back and watch us bicker back and forth because it was hilarious. It's true, though. We're both incredibly witty. Though me a little more so.) I'm terrified that will happen again with this group.

It doesn't help that my friends are very talented and brilliant, so they are leaving for fantastic opportunities abroad. One is interning with some important international law place (that's the official name) in the Hague, another is going on an archaeological dig in Germany, and another is going to grad school in London (don't be too impressed- it's for library studies which is honestly barely even a real thing). And I'm so proud of all of them, but for those who are not aware, Europe is quite a distance away, and does not lend itself to easy visits.

It must be said though that despite how monumentally sucky each ending was, they all led to the next awesome thing. I really hate that saying about closed doors and open windows, so I refuse to admit it relevancy to this. I can only hope that the crappiness I feel now will be compensated by the next great thing later.