how am i gonna be me without the people who make me who i am??

the more i think about leaving, the more i think about how important my friends are. my friends have seriously shaped every single thing about me. the people you surround yourself with constantly rub off on you soo much, even if you don't notice it. me and my friends are exactly the same. we have the same likes, dislikes, looks, personalities, senses of humor, and mannerisms. you pick up on little things people around you do without even noticing until it makes you like one person in the same.
i'm afraid that when i make new friends in college that same thing is going to happen, and when i come home and hang out with my high school friends, it's not going to be the same.
omgggggggggggggg

college

i can't believe i'm going to college in less than three months. i can't even begin to imagine what it's going to be like...
i'm really excited, but at the same time i am soo terrified. i'm sure i'll have fun, everyone does, but since i've never experienced it before, i just don't know what it's going to be like.
i can't believe i am sitting in my last 6th period class ever. i'll never wake up again and go to a full day of school. i just can't imagine life without school. as much as i complain about it, i love it. school isn't just to learn academics, school basically shapes your whole life. we're at school for a good majority of every day. this is where we make our friends and our enemies, we eat, we laugh, we ditch.. we have so many experiences here. it's just so weird to think that i'm never coming back.
i'm going to miss my friends so much. when i hear older people talk about how they never even talk to their high school friends anymore, i'm in shock. my friends are my entire life. i see them all day at school and i hang out with them every second i'm not in school. how can i not be with them every day? my best friends are going to Michigan, Iowa, and Florida. how can i be myself without the people who made me who i am??
ahhhhhh

graduation

omg.
this has seemed so far away for so long. how is graduation already in a week? i've watched so many other people graduate and i always thought I understood how they felt.. but i've never felt anything like this before.. it's soo weird. And we haven't even graduated yet.
wow..

cruise control

i experienced something the other day that made me think about the way people drive in america.. i ran out of gas in the middle of route 22. i put on my hazards and waved people around me, because there was really nothing else i could do, but instead of understanding that i couldn't move, most everyone who drove past me honked at me and gave me dirty looks.. one person even flicked me off. i found this ridiculous, like, unless they wanted to get out of their cars and help me push mine to a gas station, what was the big deal with driving around me? obviously i couldn't move, why would i voluntarily park my car in the middle of a busy street?
so, this made me realize how rude people are when they're protected by the aluminum armor of their cars. people think that when they're in their cars, they are invincible. like, when there are three 17-year-old girls stranded in the middle of a busy street, instead of realizing they are having problems and just being considerate by driving around them, or maybe even trying to help (omg, no way), people feel like they can be rude and obnoxious because maybe they're in a hurry, just because they are in their cars and they can drive away right after.
and this made me think about the way i drive. both of my parents are very cautious, passive-aggressive drivers, and that has always annoyed me.. which could be part of the reason i drive the way i do now. i always speed, i honk at people who get in my way or don't move fast enough for me, i yell out my window at people who piss me off.. and being in the situation of someone who is the one who pisses off other aggressive drivers made me realize that i don't want to drive like that anymore. i don't know why so many people drive like that, how big of a hurry could you actually be in? i know i'm never really in that big of a hurry when i do it to other people. i think everyone just needs to relax when they're driving. slamming on your gas and yelling at people out your window ultimately only hurts you by costing you more gas and possibly pissing off someone who could be crazy and follow you and kill you for yelling at them.
so, it might not be easy but i'm definitely going to try to remember this when i'm driving because i realized that there really is no point in driving the way i do, i just need to take a deep breath and cruise.

ahh

last night i found out that over the weekend around the corner from my house, a guy in a silver audi pretended to be a cop and pulled a girl over, handcuffed her, and tried to rape her. she ran away and he tackled her, but thankfully she ended up getting away.
this scares the crap out of me because i think buffalo grove is a high class neighborhood, and i wouldn't expect it to be a place where something like that could happen, and right around the corner of my house! this made me look back to things i've done and realize that i could have soo easily ended up in this same situation with the way i act. i am definitely going to be more careful now.
this honestly sounds like something that would happen in a movie, i can't believe this could happen right by my house. buffalo grove is my home, where i used to play on the street all night, stuff like this is not supossed to happen here.
who would expect some guy in his 20's who drives an audi in buffalo grove to do something like that??
girls be careful!

let me make my own mistakes!

while reading the article "putting teen-parent conflicts in perspective," i was amazed at how much it reminded me of my own life. the first thing that i totally related to was when the article said, "it's extremely difficult for parents today to look at a specific problem that they may have with their teenager...without seeing it as a sign of crisis..." my mom is a councler for teenagers with drug problems, so obviously she sees the signs of extreme drug use every day. i do not personally abuse drugs, but my mom is so used to looking for signs of drug use, she analyzes me constantly. for example, freshman and sophomore year, every single day after school, i came home and took a nap because i wasn't used to the tolls of high school. but junior year and this year, instead of napping after school, i go out with my friends mostly every day. but, a couple months ago i was really stressed out with school and work and i wasn't getting enough sleep, so i started napping after school again. my mom of course used her drug councling smarts to see this as a sign of extreme drug use, and started grilling me every time i walked into the house, analyzing every single thing i did and pointing it out as a sign of drug use. i understand that she was just worried about me, but i think that it's ridiculous that she would see me sleeping after school as a sign of drug use. she knows i don't get any sleep so it should make complete sense to her that i want to sleep after a long day of school. taking a nap in the middle of the day is not a sign of crisis, sorry mom.
another thing in my life that relates to the article is how my parents treat me differently because i have an older brother. since my brother messed up a lot when he was my age, my parents decide everything they allow me to do based on what he's done in the past, which i think is so unfair, because i am a completely different person. just because he acted a certain way while doing something doesn't mean if i go out and do that same thing i'm going to act the same way as him. even though we were raised by the same people, that does not make us the same person. i have my own brain.
i know my parents are a lot older than me and have been through a lot more in their lives, but they are who they are today because of the choices and mistakes they made when they were younger. so, instead of trying to protect me by not letting me live and experience things, good or bad, i wish they would just let me make my own mistakes!!

media minded

some people might deny it, because we have been so bombarded by the media ever since we were born that we don't even realize how it completely shapes our lives. but the truth is that while you might think you are thinking for yourself, you never really are. anything you ever know or think comes from something you've seen before, like an ad. one thing that the media affects dramatically is how women think of themselves. how often do you see ads with models who aren't like 5'7" and size 0? almost never, unless it's an ad for overweight people, or some kind of people that the media has taught us to think are inadequate. everything from clothing ads to food ads feature women who we are taught to see as "beautiful." so.. if you're not 5'7" and 100 pounds you're not beautiful? that's what the media is teaching women to think, and most likely why so many girls have eating disorders or other serious problems.
also, sal showed us that website with the photoshop horrors, showing how the media changes women who look like actual normal people to look absolutely perfect. changing every flaw even down to their belly buttons.. ? excessive?
people in the real world do notttt look like this!