I don't call it senioritis (not yet, anyway). But now I give myself priorities. There are certain classes that I like better than others. I concentrate more on them and don't worry about little grievances like forgetting a homework assignment or two. Sure, it may not be ideal, but before I would have stressed a lot over something like this.

The greatest part is that this change in attitude makes learning easier for me. Instead of learning for the sake of going to college, I am learning biology for my own sake and my own interest. It's not like I am going to become a biology major anytime soon, but I am now even more fascinated by it than before midterms.

I think that this is a taste of what it is like to be in college. Grades are not everything. You could make it past law school, grad school, etc, but if you still don't create your own ideas and don't have any common sense, where in reality are you going to be in the workforce? It won't even matter if you graduated from the best university in the world if you cannot apply your knowledge and actually understand that knowledge.

On another note, I am very excited to be going to college. On Saturday, I should be receiving my decision letter from University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP). Then it will be a long haul to the end of March / beginning of April, when I will receive all my other decision letters. Of course, there is a 25 page research paper on Ernest Hemingway to fill up the time between then.

It might be somewhat disheartening if I do not make it into UMCP because it will be my second rejection letter (Georgetown was not really a rejection, but it did feel like one). And a rejection means I have to wait longer to feel like I'm guaranteed to go to college next year. But for some reason, I have not been anxious about whether I will be rejected or accepted. It has become my belief that everything happens for the best. Maybe I won't get into UMCP. But what if instead I make it into Georgetown or an Ivy League? Does that mean that I should have been accepted? No, it does not matter: I cannot control the college numbers game beyond my application and supplemental material. What happens after that is left up to the admissions officers at these schools. That's life. And that's what I think seniors need to understand. Just because you don't make it the first time doesn't mean you are unable to move on in life. It just means that you have to deal with it and work a little harder. When you can understand that, you've leaped a great distance closer to becoming a mature, independent adult.