Post.

The last 48 hours have been crazy.
I'll attempt to cover everything here, but it might take a while. :-)

First, GRADUATION.
Getting there was the hardest part. Liz's parents bought her a brand new VW Bug for graduation, so we decided to drive it to UVSC. The only problem was that none of us knew how to drive a stick shift car. We put on our hazard lights and stalled all the way there, and people were honking and screaming. It was kind of funny, except for the part when we realized we were going to be late. Luckily, my neighbor, Connor, saw us struggling and hopped in the car to park it for us. I've never been so grateful to the kid in my life. We literally ran through the parking lot in our huge white robes, dropping things and balancing on our high heels, and made it just in time to take our places in line.
The ceremony wasn't what I thought it would be- I didn't cry or hug everyone or freak out when my name was called to receive my diploma folder. I sat there calmly, listening to my friends speak, and even fell asleep during the school board representative's inspirational story. It was like any other assembly, with no real sentimental meaning. We took pictures and got our real diplomas afterward, which was cute, and then my mom and I went out to get lunch. She gave me beautiful diamond earrings set in 14k gold! They're gorgeous.

Later that night, we got a bunch of people together to watch the Lost finale. It was a good ending to the season, and I was really happy that we were able to watch it with Kyle, Chandler and Hyung. They're so much fun. I love being around them.

After Lost, it was time for the Senior All-Night Party, which was being hosted at Timpview by the PTA parents (my mom included). We showed up on time, as did most people, and spent a last few hours with the members of our senior class. :-( There was tons of free food, prize drawings every so often (my friend won a laptop!), dancing, karaoke, and game show simulations. I totally could have won the game show if I'd have been chosen! I watched it with Daniel, Ben and Joe, my nerd friends from 8th period, and we had fun yelling out random answers and making up nerdy ways of saying the real ones (ex: integral notation for a measurement conversion). I'll miss those kids. The Friendship I took tons of pictures (all of which hit Facebook within 24 hours) and sang Backstreet Boys for karaoke. It was a fun party, made special by the fact that we'll probably never see half of those people ever again. When the party ended, we all made our way to the movie theater, where we watched the new Indiana Jones film. It was ridiculous- all about evil Communist Russians and aliens with elongated crystal heads. We sat through it, though, and it ended around 5 AM, after which Louisa and I went to Parker Dobson's house to watch Cloverfield with he and some other boys. Everyone fell asleep except me and Tom Smith, which was kind of funny. After the movie, the others woke up, and we lay on couches talking disorientedly about random things until 8:30 AM, when we were picked up. I've never spent the night at a boy's house before, so the experience was exciting (though I lay on a couch on the opposite side of the room from the boys the whole time).

I got home and went swimsuit shopping so I'd have something to wear in Newport (the Friendship leaves Monday) and then went out to eat with my parents (at which point I'd gone 30+ hours without sleep). I crashed on the couch for three hours and then started a new book, Stephenie Meyer's "The Host," which I'm finding to be extremely creative. I love having time to read, and it's fun having the option to read contemporary fiction like this (I normally don't give it much consideration; I'd rather read scientific literature or classics I know I'll need to be familiar with for English). I called the Friendship, and we decided to make trifle (we ate the whole dish of it) and have a sleepover outside on the grass in my friend's backyard. It was a gorgeous night- the sky was clear and the air was cool enough to make one comfortable in a thick blanket. We set up a tarp and sleeping bags and laughed and talked for hours before going to sleep. Earlier, we'd visited Joe, Chandler, Hyung and Andy, who were also having an outside sleepover. We walked in on them watching an animated movie on a projector in Joe's backyard, all snuggled up in mounds of blankets. It made me really happy to see them- I'm just beginning to realize that the end of school doesn't have to mean the end of my friendships. We'll save that unhappy realization for the end of summer. :-( Anyway, circa 5 AM, the boys came and visited us at our sleepover to reciprocate, which was sweet.
I didn't sleep more than two hours all night; in between texting the boys and watching the sky's gradual metamorphosis from black to deep blue to grey, there was just no time. :-)

I got up at 7:30 to leave and get ready for phlebotomy class, in which I successfully drew blood from my partner's impossible veins for the first time ever, thank you very much. I've been able to get blood on different people before, but never him, so this week's success made me happy. I have good veins, so he got blood both times he drew from me. I made sure to look away and ate breakfast/drank water beforehand to prevent another vasovagal syncope incident. I like my phlebotomy class. The mix of people in there is entirely diverse, which makes for interesting interaction.

Now, it's midmorning and I am at the computer in my purple scrubs, two cotton balls taped to my antecubital fossas, and I think I'll get on with the day.

It's going to be beautiful.
I can already tell.
♥