Reflections and Images

 A few days ago, I attended prom with all of my friends. I would say it was a memorable experience. I already wrote about prom in my diary, but I didn't really write down my reflections about prom so I will do it here.  Prom felt like the culmination of high school. After four years of working hard to get good grades, prom was the time when we could finally relax and celebrate without worrying about academic matters. Because prom was held after graduation, this was the last time I would see most of my classmates. The reason I say this is that the majority of my classmates will not attend college near me. Knowing this, I felt I was more mindful of the short time I had left with my classmates. As a result, I tried my best to be in the present moment by dancing with my classmates and taking pictures with them. Before prom, I didn't expect myself to dance, but surprisingly enough, I did in the end. I only danced half of the time because my feet were already getting blisters from h...

Recently, I received a surprise in the mailbox. I got my letter that I wrote four years ago that was addressed to my 2021 self. Before opening the letter, the only thing I could remember was that I put a lot of pressure on myself at that time to get into a top college. This is what I wrote before entering high school:  Dear self,  Currently, I am a nerdy student that has low self-confidence. Everyone says I am smart but I somehow never believe that to be true [1]. I am hard working and persevering. I don't give up even if I stumble and fall down [2]. I like playing piano though I should put more effort into it. I HAVE TO! I like reading and listening to music. I am a little nervous about high school because I am scared that it is harder than middle school. However, I am glad to learn more things and take the classes I want. The good thing about going to a new high school is that I won't have to see or be with some idiotic boys that everyone hates [3]. I am excited about joinin...

 Today felt so surreal. I couldn't believe that on June 4th, 2021, I would graduate from high school. It is funny to recall old memories like in first grade where I thought that there was no point in thinking about graduation because it was so far away. 4 years ago, I imagined myself walking down the football field at a local public school because I didn't even know I would attend a small private school at that time.  The whole morning was quite lame. I spent an hour "decorating" my graduation cap. I put quotation marks because I was simply observing my mom decorating the cap. Although it would have been better if I decorated it myself, my mom knows that I tend to rush things and screw up the whole process. The design was quite simple compared to my peers. I used two laptop stickers sent from MIT CP* (cartoon beavers) and used strips to make the MIT logo. Then I printed the dome logo and stuck it at the bottom. For the borders, I just used silver adhesive paper instea...