The end of my senior year was fairly uneventful. Mostly I spent my time hanging out with friends and waiting to hear back from colleges. I had my heart set on going to University of California, Santa Barbara. Once I got accepted there, the whole excitement of applying to college was finally over. Other than that, I went to Disneyland with the band class that I helped out with. The last time I went to Disneyland I was twelve, so I had an awesome time with my friends. It was a great way to end high school.

Over the summer, I worked at the city pools for the third year in a row. Although this job is outside in the heat, I have good friends at work, so it’s pretty fun. Also, I attended a bunch of “End of High School” and “Going off to College” parties. This together made my summer really busy. The highlight, however, was the trip that I took with my four best friends to Ireland. This was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We took a tour that drove us around the Island, where we saw the major sights, including the Blarney Stone and thousands of sheep. One of the most interesting parts of the trip was staying in hostels, which have about 12 (random) people to a room. Ireland is a beautiful country with very nice people. My friends and I tried very hard not to be obnoxious teenage American tourists, and managed to make friends with some of the people in our tour. Although I had a great summer, I was very anxious to pack up some of my stuff and move to Santa Barbara.

Life at UCSB is pretty awesome. My best friends live in my hall, and I stop by their rooms to say hi, or just because I am bored. The area is beautiful and I am lucky enough to be able to see the ocean from my window. Nothing too exciting or life-changing has happened yet. My classes are a decent amount of work, but similar to the honors classes that I took in high school. My major right now is Environmental Studies, but I will probably change it; I’m not really sure. Although I like coming home and seeing all of my high school friends and my family, I am excited for next quarter. I’ll be playing intramural tennis, and maybe basketball. Plus, it’s fun to live with friends even though I am constantly lacking sleep. Feel free to visit me anytime; I personally hate dorm food, so I would be happy to go out to lunch or dinner.

Merry Christmas!!!!!