I’m going to be eighteen in five days. I used to be horrified at the whole idea, but as it looms nearer I’m starting to accept it… even get excited about it.
One thing is certain: I will never forget my eighteenth birthday celebrations.
You remember my best friend Amanda, right? Well let’s just say she is… amazing. Like, superpower amazing.
Somehow, she managed to organize an entire eighteenth birthday party for me… without giving me the slightest hint. She invited all my very favorite people even though she hasn’t met half of them (yay Facebook). I didn’t suspect anything for one single moment, even though I frequently talk to her and all the other friends who came to the party.
I feel stupid. But I feel loved too. :)
Oh, and one more thing that will help me remember my eighteenth: the awesome plunge with Sam into the 42-degree Columbia River yesterday.
Again, I feel stupid. But I feel very accomplished too. :)
Welcome 2012, and welcome nineteenth year of life.
On Monday, I had the opportunity to join my best friend Amanda on a portrait shoot with her friend Dustin, who’s also into photography. So we traded off between posing and picture-taking. :) Needless to say, I infinitely preferred taking the pictures to being in them…
And a few fine-art type pictures I took at the same location, using my telephoto lens at its widest aperture pointed straight up at the dangling branches of a birch tree:
Yeeshk, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I’ve been traveling backward in time and spending my weeks as a strong-willed countess in Shakespearean-era Italy, stopping back into the real world just long enough to turn in algebra homework. :)
In spite of all the servants I had on hand, it was a lot of work being Italian nobility. Who knew it took so much energy to reject the advances of the Duke of Illyria, pursue the affections of the Duke’s servant (to no avail), find out you married the wrong man, and get mental help for your manservant who has suddenly fallen in love with you?!
On top of that, I had weeks of Princess Diaries-style “princess lessons” to learn how to gracefully wear the insanely heavy (but impressive) dresses, and I had to become fluent in a new language. (“Go thou, and seek the crowner, and let him sit o’ my coz—for he’s in the third degree of drink; he’s drowned.”)
It’s bittersweet to be back in 21st-century America permanently. I don’t really miss the hot, scratchy dresses or the fear of tripping on my hem. I don’t even miss my husband (I married him the same day that I met him, so I really didn’t know him very well). I can’t miss the language, because I haven’t lost it—I will be reforming sentences into Shakespearean English until my dying day!
But I do miss being with my fellow sixteenth-century Italians, living the luxurious life of royalty and forgetting temporarily that such things as homework, analytical essays, and imaginary numbers even exist.
(To borrow a few words from Shakespeare, I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, to my best friend and fellow photographer Amanda for taking pictures of our final Twelfth Night performance!)
I have been completely swamped for the past few weeks. This weekend, our high school drama club’s production of Twelfth Night finally opens—something I, along with thirteen other kids, have been working on since the beginning of September. It’s been awesome to watch it come together and a blast to build new friendships, but wow, when I think about actually performing it in two days, I want to take the first flight to Honolulu.
If it were just the play, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But somehow all three of my college professors have collaborated to beef up my homework load massively this week. So it’s not just remembering 118 lines and cues and countless tones, inflections, costume changes, and gestures; it’s remembering to turn in my final draft on time, to figure out the least common denominator before adding like terms in the numerator, to find half an hour to exercise somewhere in my week, and to eat and sleep once in awhile as well.
Odd as it sounds, though, there’s something invigorating about being emotionally, mentally, socially, and physically exhausted. It brings me to a place of total surrender to God—a place I should be way more often than I am. And it reminds me to appreciate the moments I can rest, the moments I can enjoy without stressing about a deadline or a grade or a play performance.
Some of the best moments of my week occur between 11:50AM and 2:00PM on Mondays. That’s when I’ve just gotten out of health class and get to spend a couple of hours with my amazing best friend, Amanda. We find a cheap place to eat, catch up on each other’s weeks, and laugh abundantly. Some days we find a spot to take pictures—my senior portraits, pictures of her for my portfolio, or even just the scenery.
Yeah, I could do without the feeling of being completely overwhelmed. I’m not really a fan of the undertow sensation, being dragged deeper and deeper down against my will. But when I’m in that place, too tired to fight my way to the surface and knowing there is no escape, I realize that whatever happens, God is in control. Knowing that gives me strength to get through the impossible. I even have some energy left over for some fun and laughter at the end of the day. :)
Now that I’ve sermonized you to death, my friends, I need some advice. The same day I took all the pictures in this post, Amanda took several senior pictures for me. I love the following, but can’t decide which one is my favorite variation! Your votes would be most welcome!
Thank you in advance!
I drove to my best friend Amanda’s house yesterday.
I’ve never done that before, even though I’ve had my driver’s license for over a year.
She lives around fifty miles away… down a long, curvy, steep, narrow grade. I think I had too much fun driving down that thing. Back up again wasn’t quite as thrilling, though.
We keep in contact by email and get together every couple of months for our “portrait fixes.” These generally consist of a lot of pictures… a lot of posing… a lot of insanity… and a lot of food.
Current picture total for yesterday only: 754.
Amanda is one of those people with natural class. She always looks stylish. She can do the coolest poses. She is so much fun to take pictures of.
Have you ever met someone like that before? I find them amazing.
The two of us are notorious for getting a little, um, cranky when we aren’t sufficiently fed. So a portrait session must include food (including sugary food) to keep us from going crazy.
Well, maybe it doesn’t quite keep us from going crazy… but it helps.
We had grand and glamorous plans for getting dressed up in long, flowy dresses and then taking portraits of each other wading through the sand and water at the riverside. We did get in the dresses, but promptly decided not to put ourselves through the emotional trauma of looking quite that ridiculous on a populous beach.
That is not a decision I regret.
You can check out Amanda’s photography here. And since the portraits she took will be (some of) my senior pictures, I guess I’ll show you guys a couple…
[editing by me]
So yeah. Another awesome day of portraits (and food!!) goes down in the history of Us. :)
