Even so, I cannot wait to get out of here. I'm not saying that I'm eager to leave my parents behind. I'm just exciting to take control of my own life, and to live where I am the one that sets the rules. I am excited to go to school with 8,000 new people, and to live among my peers. I am excited to be able to stop frantically saying "Curfew! Curfew! Curfew!" when the parties end on late Saturday nights to chanting "Toga! Toga! Toga!" when they are just beginning early Sunday morning (Actually, I hope I'll never actually be part of a wannabe Animal House "Toga!" chant).

Countless seniors at my school are also talking about how they are thrilled to have the chance to leave town in the fall, but too many of them, in my opinion, are going to college with their high school friends. Obviously, for some people, this is unavoidable (like the 70 or so that are going to the University of Illinois). The ones that worry me, though, are those who are already planning on rooming with their high school friends.

One of my closest friends will be going to school with me next year, but we have already decided that we aren't going to be roommates. We both want the chance to 'start over', if you will, and to become part of a new environment completely different from what we had in high school.

It is going to be hard for me to only get to see my high school friends a few times a year, but I know that it's for the best that we go our separate ways. Everybody deserves the chance to enter a new world, and, for those that are going to live in dorm blocks with eight of their hometown buddies. it will be nearly impossible to differentiate college from high school.

There is a joke that one of the dorms at Illinois should really be known as the "University of Barrington" for all of the students from my town that go there to live together. I am thankful for everything that my town and my school have offered me, but, nonetheless, I am ecstatic to become part of a new city and a new institution.

Maybe when I move into my dorm there will be an awkward time where I don't know anybody and feel like I am on my own. Frankly, I would prefer being forced to put myself out there to make new friends to hanging out with people I already knew from high school.

While I am looking forward to leaving Barrington, I am trying to avoid counting down the days I have left here. Since I won't be able to see my friends every day next year, I want to make the time I have left at home count. It has taken me until my senior year to realize how precious our time in high school really is, and it is something I wish that I had discovered earlier.