Oh my gosh I'm so excited

I can't believe summer's over. I say this all the time, and it was already a cliche before I overused it, but where has the time gone? I'm actually going to be 17 in a few short months. I'm not so upset about this birthday. Maybe it hasn't hit me yet, but I think my attitude's just changed. It's too ironic to waste time worrying about time.

I've been so busy lately, I feel like I'm doing something with the last quarter of my 17th year. I'm never bored. If I'm not doing something interesting, I find something interesting to do. That's always been true for me, though. It's a Tuesday in the summer and I've been up and running around since 7:15, even though I didn't get home until 11:30 last night.

My friend and I have been working on this project we're doing for school. We're in a magnet program that requires us to take some kind of a leadership role in a community service project. We're creating one ourselves. It's going to be a festival for kids to raise money for children with life-threatening illnesses. A local organization does a lot for families of these children, and they need money. We're going to work with them to get some publicity for their organization and increase community awareness about the children in our own city whose lives are being stolen by diseases.

It's A LOT of work. I mean, we spent most of Sunday thinking of fundraiser ideas to raise money to buy the pavillion to hold the festival. We have it all planned out, though, all the permits and legalities, we know what we need and how to get it. We have it organized who in our group is responsible for which aspects of the project, and we pretty much have every Saturday from now until the event over a year from now planned with fundraisers, but we think it will be worth the work. We're so into it, we keep forgetting about the school requirements. It's our baby. That's what M calls it.

Even my dad, who looks at endeavors like this so practically and realistically, is supporting us. I'm so excited. Even though I don't want school to start, I'm ready to make this a great year. I'm not wasting any more of my fleeting high school years. It's supposedly the time of your life, right?

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind." --William James

Love,
Juliana