MAY 29, 2012

The yearbook did a profile piece/spread on me/my photography this year. I was quite happy with how it turned out. I took the yearbook home to show my parents.

My mom said nothing about it besides noting that a teacup in a photograph was from my aunt’s house.

My dad took one cursory glance at it and the first and only thing he has said was a piece of criticism on one of my photographs. 

Thanks, dad. 

You’re the most supportive parent anyone could ask for—especially me.

MAY 26, 2012

I attended and photographed my last Jazz and Pizzazz event ever tonight.

For the past month or two, people have always been saying, “Oh my god, we’re going to graduate in x months; it’s so soon!” and such, and I typically tended to agree with them, but it honestly never really sank in and I haven’t really been able to process that until now.

The senior song performance (all the ToC and band seniors sang “Long Live” by Taylor Swift on stage) really hit me. I’m graduating, and so are these wonderful people I’ve known for so long and have grown up with. When this school year is over—I will probably never see some of them again.

I teared up both nights of Jazz and Pizzazz at this part, but I felt especially emotional tonight since it’s seriously all the seniors’ last time performing for Jazz and Pizzazz. I saw one girl wipe a tear from her eye and keep singing, I saw classmates and friends up on stage look at each other, exchange knowing glances, smile, and continue singing; friends held hands, hugged, put arms around each other’s shoulders—it was just so sentimental and moving—I don’t know how to describe it.

MAY 25, 2012

Just came back home from Jazz and Pizzazz. 

• I felt like an idiot because I brought my parents’ DSLR with me to photograph (since someone in TPT did not return the newspaper camera WTF?) but realized when I got there that it didn’t have a memory card in it. That killed me. 
• At least I already decided beforehand that I was going to/will be going to attend senior night (the final night of Jazz and Pizzazz)
• Went with the best fran—kept up the tradition and crossed one thing off my high school bucket list!*

Read More

MAY 24, 2012

• Utterly bombed that debate. I felt really bad about it and was sorry I could not be of much use to my partner. We were a strange team.
• Finished my VCU Ram for the Synder’s “College Board” yee
• Worked on my finance project and two good things happened: one—”I love it”; two, meeting and interacting with people. I started talking to this junior at the table I was sitting at in the library and someone else said my name and the junior stopped, looked at me, and was like, Oh, so you’re Miranda! You’re the one who takes beautiful photographs, right? I answered yes before I heard her say “beautiful photographs” and then I quickly said thank you like my usual awkward self and then I just couldn’t stop laughing and talking to her and her friend the whole period. It was fun. Plus they somehow motivated me to get my work done all at the same time. 
• Bad news: found out that Andromeda will not be arriving until the 29th because of my negligence on my part…
• Walked home with Astrid. I was literally a poster child—I walked holding a poster/had it plastered on me while cars passed by.
• We picked up a thousand beads on the floor of her living room
• We split a pizza
• We read writings from her past and I felt incredibly impressed/awestruck
• Sweet Frog—what an experience. I was so happy to see Caro, Molly, Evan, Shannon, Mrs. Robertson (and her adorable daughter), and other CHS friends and faculty (past and present) again. And also, newspaper bonding.
• Astrid’s crazy driving in reverse down an entire street at night and my steering the car at some point even though I sat in the passenger seat wtf oh my god I was like Take the wheel, Jesus (I said it in the wrong order at the time because I could hardly believe what was happening/what I was doing)
• Knocking on and standing at Caro’s door at nighttime around 9:30 p.m. to deliver the two Drake tickets she won—absolute perfect example of serendipity.
• Did actual parent-daughter things tonight for the first time in my life; I showed my mom my prom pics and I also showed her pictures of newspaper and great stuff like that; it was kind of strange but really nice.

I feel like I am forgetting something really important that happened today. But what a day, truly. 

MAY 23, 2012

• I am so fucking pissed right now. My computer decides to crash when I’m working on a fucking debate project with a partner. Really? And I hate our topic and our stance, which doesn’t help the situation. We don’t have any directly relevant precedent for this shit. How are we supposed to argue it?
• Zinger will not be returning to CHS. I still cannot process this. The lives of newspaper, broadcast, and lit mag kids past and present will change.
• Did my final dissection today; dissected a fetal pig. It was not fun.
• Said “fucking” in my graduation speech for English class today
• Got an invitation to convocation. That has been one of the few good things that has happened today.
• Fuck this debate project ugh

MAY 23, 2012

Today I said the word fuck (or a variation of it) in my “graduation speech” for English class.

I think it woke people up.

In context, this is the paragraph:

“…Also, I’m naturally assuming that whatever you happen to love to do is also what you tend to be good at doing. For me, this is the arts, err, creative field. I would never make a top-rate surgeon or doctor or what have you. I’d just be second-rate. I’d never be the fuckin’ best, and that would suck, because guess what—I’d be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Worse—on top of that, I could end up accidentally killing someone or prescribing the wrong medicine or making the wrong diagnosis and have more than just a couple lawsuits on my head. So I’m going to leave the doctoring to the people who are meant to become doctors and instead focus on what I do best.”