Sixteenth Grade

Sixteenth grade smells a lot like fried chicken and tequila, or perhaps that's just Wyckoff after Family Dinner. Sixteenth grade sounds like Kanye, with our downstairs neighbor's techno also making the far too common appearance especially on mid-week mornings. Sixteenth grade looks like a train wreck at times, except when we're all dressed up for the various internships, jobs(dare we say it!), and meetings that occasionally come up. And sixteenth grade tastes like absolute freedom with the slight bitterness of the real world on the back of our tongues. Sixteenth grade is wild and dramatic and loud. There's also a strange amount of ABC family shows and movies in sixteenth grade. Sixteenth grade isn't filled with a whole lot of sleep, but it's the stuff memories are made of. It is the stories we laugh until we cry at the next morning, and if they're really good we still laugh at them the next week. Sixteenth grade is a year full of last firsts, and there's only 3.5 months left of it so we're soaking up as much sixteenth grade as we can.

The name was coined by Liam or maybe it was Emma or Max or Adam or Katie. Heck it could have been Hannah, but she's a little Fifteenth grader so somehow I doubt it. A text has just confirmed that it was indeed Liam. All I know is that as soon as I heard it, I liked it. Sixteenth grade is our final year of college, before we spread our wings and leave our safe little New Brunswick haven. The thought is inevitably an even combination of exciting and scary. Not many of us(slash none of us) know exactly what were going to be doing, where we're going to be living, or how we will survive for that matter, but it's good thing. We'll have our degrees and from there, I'm personally hoping that the world just envelops me into an array of possibilities and I eventually choose one for more than three days. That's one thing I've been really consistent on: coming up with amazing plans for my future only to come up with an even better one three days later. At least I'm consistently inconsistent.

I'm taking the night off from Sixteenth grade because tomorrow I have the pleasure of waking up at 4:30AM so that I can go coach my 11/12 year old volleyball team. We're dead last in our region, but they're first in my heart. We've yet to win a game, but luckily they're at the age that it doesn't make too much of a difference as long as they get their serve over the net or I let them "volley" on an open court. They're tres cute! I never thought that I would enjoy coaching as much as I do. It's funny because when you're playing you never think about what a pain in the butt you are, but when you're coaching you realize you probably drove your own coaches to drink more than one glass of two buck chuck. Oops, sorry about that. Also luckily for me, my girls also think I'm the strongest and most perfect "volley-er" they've ever seen, even when I hit a ball on the other side of the antenna. It's been great for my self-esteem thus far.

So I'm off to bed to dream up perfect rotations and grandiose 16th grade and beyond plans. Charmed life. Hope it's going just as swell for all of you even those of you in like the 37th grade...oh no, bedtime came simultaneously with my neighbor's house music and bass, they're in 16th grade too so who can blame 'em.

Ciao!

Last Night

Tonight is the last night that I will sleep in my childhood bed as a college student. By the time I return in May, I will have a degree, and hopefully some idea of how to spend the next part of the rest of my life. The first part of that I'm sure of, the second part is up for grabs.

This break has given me a lot of time to think about what I want to do with the rest of my life, if I could only settle on a few of those thoughts I would be in pretty dandy shape. Today, while I made butterscotch frosting for a chocolate cake, Julia read to me from some of her favorite blogs. One of them, "The Pioneer Woman," had a section on blogging tips that suggested that you need to tend to a blog like a plant, and even when you have nothing to say, say it anyway. (How was that for a run-on sentence...). Tonight is one of those nights that I don't have a whole lot to say...

Here's what I did on my last day of my last night as an undergraduate student in Encinitas:

I went hiking with my two best friends to Torrey Pines and down onto the beach...

Photo Courtesy of Rainforestcollective.com

We ate Vegan Cupcakes at Lotus Cafe in Downtown Encinitas...



We sat in the sand in our running clothes and lied to boys by saying we were training for a triathalon(apparently that seemed like a good excuse for us being at the beach in running wear)...


Jules read crazy internet finds while I baked a yummy chocolate cake with butterscotch frosting...

The Butterscotch Frosting was homemade from my new cookbook, but the cake was a mix(Trader Joes succeeds again!)

Had dinner with my whole family and then some...

Pretended to pack but really looked at European adventures...

Sat in my bed with Rodeo, my hyperactive yet lovable cattle dog.


I think it was a pretty good final day. The sun was shining, the company was fabulous, and I still have an entire semester of fun ahead of me. Yes, life ,while certainly not quite as orderly as I would like, is good.

Gorgeous!

Ps-I found this picture of my grandpa while I was cleaning their attic...it makes me smile no matter how many times I look at it!