The Unimaginable.

You never consider the thought, it just seems so alien. You don't picture something like this happening here, to the people you know =/.

Monday morning tradgedy struck in my hometown. It was a weird morning from the start, I was running late(as usual), making the mad dash from the parking lot to the school, trying to get to homeroom in time to make it on our field trip. Since Amanda and I always sit together on the bus, talking amongst ourselves, we kind of missed out on the surrounding conversations, especially since we sat in the very front. Once we reached the college we were doing our business day at, we caught up with another classmate telling us how she "couldn't believe what happened", and of course we were clueless.. "You didn't know, Ben was found dead this morning.., he killed himself.." It hit me like a ton of bricks.

Always a grade below me, I never had much interaction with him, but we knew eachother, and I have a few fond memories of him that I'll always hold close. He was a polite, respectable boy, who always seemed to be smiling. I would have never expected this to happen to him. He must have held a lot inside :/. He gave so much to the community, more than I ever knew of after hearing the memorial service this evening, that really opened my eyes to who he was. He was a funny kid, anyone who talked to him could vouch for that. Big plans too.. he was determined to go into the army, a very patriotic boy.. Recently he was even accepted into a highly selective citizenship program. The more I think of him, the more I wish I had gotten the time, the chance to talk with him more. Our paths just did not cross at the right moments.
This has had such an impact on us, our school. Everyone is upset even if we're all showing it in different ways. Mostly everyone went down to the conference room at some point to sign the cards, sit with other students to talk, to cry, to find comfort. Many of us wrote letters to him. We all wonder the same question.. why?, but we'll never get an answer. I think there is a lot to his story that we don't know, and never will.
I think it's causing us to reflect, to realize that we're fragile and we cannot take anything forgranted. People are telling eachother that they love them, people are putting themselves out there. We know now that we aren't invincible and neither are the ones we care about. It's just so unbelievable.. we'll never see him in the hallways again, he'll never tell another joke, he'll never reach his dream of being in the army. And it's the saddest thing I've known in a long time.
You'll be in our hearts and minds forever. You will be greatly missed.. :(

Rest In Peace Benjamin ♥

I'm back :)

A lazy day was just what I needed :).

I honestly can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged :(, it's so sad. A note for anyone younger than me; Senior Year FLIES like you would not believe.. I graduate in a little over a month. Where did the time go?! School has been a major comsumer of my time and energy, but then what time I do have for myself, I use it to go, go, go, trying to squeeze in all of the moments I can with the people here, who I'm going to be missing next year. That added with the fact that I have poor time management skills = terrible blogging :/. But I am trying to make a turn around, so let's see where that takes us. Thank you to everyone who reads this, I reallyreally appreciate it, and I'm sorry it's been so inconsistent.

My Life in a Nutshell;

1. Senior Trip to Disney

2. Final Decision on College

3. Working/School

4. Quality Time with Friends :)

Ahh, the senior trip.. I miss Florida so much. It was absolutely gorgeous while we were down there. Warm, but not scorching. I believe it only rained once, and it was brief. I really like the whole airport/airplane scene. I bet I could be a decent flight attendent ;), maaybe. It probably wouldn't be as great as I'm imagining, but it's something I'd consider giving a try, just to do it. Once we arrived in Orlando all of the girls went into the restroom and switched into their shorts--- it was so WARM, a huge temperature difference from upstate NY. Our hotel was one of those 'All Star Resorts", with our theme being music. Our hotels were like, jukebox themed and the pool was shaped like a guitar. Our artroom group, which I'm sure I've mentioned before(Amanda; pictured above with me, Derek, Zack, and myself), stayed together for the majority of the trip. We were probably the most productive group I'd have to say.. While everyone else laid out by the pool we put all of our stuff away and headed out for our first park, Animal Kingdom. It was really cool there, I liked the jungle atmosphere and the animals seemed to be taken good care of. The Yeti was friggen awesome too :)! Fun ride to keep in mind for those of you who haven't been and are planning to one day. I won't go though a daily play-by-play, but we did hit up every park while we were there, and although you can't see everything Disney has to offer within less than like---two weeks probably :P, I still felt as if we saw alot, and not much of our time was wasted. I loved Epcot with all of their countries and futuristic feel. MGM was pretty awesome, we saw quite a few shows there and went on interesting rides. The Fantasmic show and dinner was spectacular. Oh, funny thing happened there-- this little boy got sick in the middle of the 'road', we were on a platform above, and we watched people continuously walking RIGHT through it, then watched their disgusted reaction a few feet later when they realized what just happened! Oh my god, it was gross but I couldn't help but laugh at the poor souls :P. It really brought our class together too, we'd watch someone approach it "Oh,oh,oh,OOHHHHHH" ;P. We were too far to really warn anyone, so we just took the opportunity to find some cheap, uncivil humor hahah. The trip was definitely a success. No real drama, atleast none that I knew much about. I did get to spend time with mostly everyone that went, but I remained with our little quadrant for most of the time ;). There's much more to it than I'm going to ramble about, but it was a great time, and I'd love to go back. I highly reccomend going on your senior trip if you're able to/don't have alternative plans that are really worth it.

UAlbany, it is :).

I finally received my acceptance letters, although Purchase sent theirs only a few days prior to the deposit deadline.. and I decided on going to Albany. It's closer to home, I know a couple of students that go there, it's a little bit cheaper. I think it will be a nice place for me to start off and get used to the college experience. It's HUGE too.. I'm used to a school with 600 kids, kindergarten-12th grade.. It's going to be a drastic change, also being in a "city" setting. I'm excited to embrace the change though :). I'm hoping to be blogging all about the college life next year ;D. It's really happening--I've applied for my housing, got my financial aid information back(although I'm going to try to cut it down a bit more..) and I am ready to go.

Work and school, there's probably no need for me to elaborate much on those. I'm realizing that I've come quite a ways from when I first started working at Polo. I kind of noticed this as I was helping a few of the newbies ;P. I still wouldn't say I'm a retail expert by any means, but it's kind of neat to think that I've learned so much. It has transformed my style a bit too, I can't lie. One of the reasons I wanted to work at Polo was because I never shopped there, hahaha. I didn't want to go spending my paycheck right back into my company. I still don't buy from there alot, but I think it's made me take into consideration what I want to be wearing like, in my twenties. The oxfords I've gotten from Ralph Lauren--I'm sure I'll be wearing them in adulthood. They have the quality to hold up over time as well as being classics. Don't get me wrong, I still like dressing a little crazy:), but it's nice to know I have some pieces that'll last me.

Then there's quality time with friends :).

This would probably be my favorite.

We have been keeping ourselves pretty busy what with birthday celebrations, icecream trips, beginning a new movie, going to the drive ins, ectect.

Also, today was Mother's Day. Well I actually began this blog entry yesterday, so it might show up as yesterday's date-- but nevertheness. I waited for my mom to finally go to bed, which was midnight, hahaha, and I then started to clean the house. It was quite a daunting task. I also bought a few things for the kitchen/bathroom and set those up for her to find in the morning. This all kept me up past 4am, but I feel it was worth it :), she was happily surprised.

It's getting late now, it's approaching midnight and I should probably allow myself some sleep. I spent most of tonight doing some online shopping-- Zumiez is having a sale on their boards, and I kind of want to jump on that before I miss the boat and have to spend a fortune come winter. I think I'll get some advice from Tom before I buy though-- snow stuff is a big investment. Also... thinking towards graduation gifts, what have you guys heard about the Kindle or the Nook? Any thoughts on those? I was thinking an e-reader would be nice in college, especially having my textbooks on there. I love physically owning books, I wouldn't quit buying the real deal-- but having one of these could be useful.

Again, I've missed you all so much! Please tell me how youall have been :).Sorry if this isn't a great post, I'm a little rusty ;P.

PS. My best friend Shayla blogs :D, I highly reccomend you check her outtt.

I'll be catching myself up on everyone's blogs this week, so expect some comments ;D!

♥ Olive