A Happy, Happy Birthday to Me

Each SYA mailing makes the amazing year ahead a little more real, and a little more scary. Still, though, I feel as if I'm walking in a dream, living someone else's life. I received the calendar for SYA at long last, having waited for it very impatiently. The layout of the year is everything I could hope for! My spring vacation overlaps the last half of Westridge's Interim Week, so if the Latin classes go to Rome, I could meet up with them. All the breaks offer ample time to explore Italy (and perhaps beyond, to visit Sarah in Switzerland?). But here's the icing atop the cake: my first full day in Italy, the day I move into my host family's home, September 1st, is my birthday, my sweet sixteen! Is that not THE birthday to have in Italy? How wonderful is the world!

Since it's so hard to imagine the experience awaiting me, I'm almost more excited about going to New York a few days early, since that reality is more, well, real. And just guess what we're going to do!! After a lot of cajoling and pestering of my mother, at last she agreed to take me.... to SPAMALOT!!! Wonderful, amazing, spectacular Spamalot! Afterward, my mom and I are going to drive to upstate New York to visit my grandparents. Since we're flying into JFK, it'll be a long, beautiful drive up through the countryside and then back. However I'll probably be terrified on the drive back, so it may not be quite so enjoyable as I imagine now, when Italy is two safe months away.

In the meantime I'm barely surviving each week. I'm interning at Westridge's summer Skills Enrichment Program (SEP). It's for girls going into 5th and 6th grade, and while it's a blast, it's far, far more work than I expected. Seriously, I should get a pedometer, or whatever those things are called. I want to see how many miles I go each day, running errands. Don't get me wrong, though - I'm really enjoying it. It's just that when I get home, I barely have the energy to eat dinner. I just crawl straight into bed. Of course, that could be because one of the little buggers got me sick. They cough all over the place, and it's only a matter of time before you pick something up.

There's one girl there who is positively adorable (They're all adorable and wonderful, of course, but this one is especially so). Long before I even knew her name, she would run up to me each morning and throw her arms around me (only me, no one else - I don't know what wonderful thing I did to earn this devotion) and say "Hi Holly!" Every morning I would just say "Hi!" because I didn't know her name. I was sure she'd realize eventually and hate me, but she never did give up on me, and at long last I learned her name, Andrea. And she still hugs me every morning! Now, two (of five) weeks into SEP, I know every damn name there is to know. I can recognize the kids in an instant, and I can finally call them by name, and believe my, that's a feat. I felt really bad at first - the kids all knew my name, right from the first, yet I simply could not remember theirs. But to be fair, there are only 6 interns and 4 teachers whose names they need to learn, but there are 54 students.

Hah, of the 6 interns, I am the ONLY one not in college. There are two who just graduated from high school, two sophomores, and a junior, all college students! And here I am, a weeny little high school junior. However, I'm still four years older than the oldest students - and hey, I'm almost 16! They seem to respect me as much as the older interns, though (by respect, I mean they're impressed by our ages, and we're nice human jungle gyms), so it's all good.

Well, I've babbled for quite long enough, so till later,

Holly

But wait! Before I go, I must say this - WHAT A GREAT WEEK IS AHEAD!!! Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Friday, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at midnight!!! My life will be complete by the end of next week!