Summer is Here

This morning, I got up at around 9:45 (yay for sleeping in on summer vacation!) and promptly discovered that our water is turned off. It is now two hours later, and I still haven't been able to take a shower yet. Apparently, our neighbor down the street has a pipe that broke, and so the city has shut off the water for our street while they repair it. Fortunately, they have responded fairly promptly, and as I'm writing this, they are outside digging up the road and repairing the broken line.

Anyway, despite this interesting start to summer vacation, it has presented me with a prompt already, as the first thing I thought after trying to turn the water on was "What if... an entire city's water supply dried up just before the summer and it's not a matter of WILL they turn the water back on but CAN they?" (a scary thought for a native Texan who has lived through 17 searing summers here).

Anyway, I'm grateful for this sign that my Muse is still alive (haven't heard from her in a while) since I'm hoping to really get going with a writing discipline now that I'm out of school. Hopefully, that bar down there will start doing something.

And on a side note, while I've been waiting for the water to come back on, I happened to run across the French Open on TV. It was more that it's in Paris than that I'm a huge tennis fan that caught my eye, but I actually played tennis several summers ago and forgot how fun it was. It made me laugh when the audience did the wave, or as the French might call it "la vague."

Freedom!

Today was my last day of high school.

While many of my classmates still need to take their final exams on Thursday and Friday, I, fortunately, am able to be exempt from all of mine. These last two days were "review days" (a.k.a. a complete waste of time), but I had to be present at school both yesterday and today in order to qualify for the exemption.

I had a fairly uneventful day for most of the morning, spent mostly talking with my classmates as most of our teachers did not do much reviewing. Lunch was nice, too, as I went off-campus with my newspaper class to Chuy's for our end of the year party. Got to talk with my good friend, Ben and then had a leisurely ten minutes to spare upon returning to school.

When the bell rang at 3:30, I walked out of the doors as if it was any other normal day, went to the car and left. And that was that. No fanfare. No cheering. No epic music.

Of course, all of that is saved for graduation next week. But as much as I have been anticipating this day, it still felt kind of sad. Of course, it's a great relief, too, but after 13 years of education, it's still hard to believe that the final day has arrived.

It's a La-La-La Lovely Day

Lately, I have been in a strange, discombobulated state, unfortunately most of which has been a bout of depression. It's too complicated to describe here, but I chalk it up to subconscious anxiety about the near future with me going to college in a few months and all, assessing where I am now, where I've been, how I could have done things differently, ironing out the crinkles in relationships with friends who will also be going through this transitory phase with me, and just trying to make the most of these last fleeting moments of a major chapter in my life's story.

Phew. With all of that said, though, I'm happy to say that the cloud has passed; for now, at least. This weekend started off the real summer season, as I had a great time at our school's Jazz Under the Stars event on Friday night after a fun day at Six Flags (with a miracle I attribute to St. Anthony to top it all off). Yesterday, I spent practically all day with my best friends from church making our end of the year video and then eating at KFC together before swimming in the rain and watching Changeling, which is a very sad movie, though it makes you think about the importance of justice.

And today was simply glorious and relaxing. After going out to breakfast at a little café/bakery with my mom, I suggested going swimming again on facebook and ended up going to the pool again with my two friends. The weather today was just gorgeous and it was really a beautiful, tranquil afternoon to just lay around by the pool and swim in the bright sunlight. I'm not really upset that I have to go to school for two more days (my last two days of high school ever!), but having the day off really made me feel like it's time for summer vacation.