In Reflection

I leave for college tomorrow. The summer is basically over, and I’m left to consider how summer 2012 shaped up. I did a lot of different things, largely thanks to the bucket list. Usually I spend most of my summer dancing, but this summer although I did dance I spent a lot of time with my friends and family doing things just for the fun of it. Cheesy as it sounds, I have a lot of memories from it now, and when I look at the list every completed item reminds me of a story, whether it’s a bug landing on me at a baseball game or laughing all night. 

However, we didn’t manage to finish the whole list. In fact, almost half is left. At first I was disappointed about this, the whole point was to do something epic my last summer before college. I’m okay with it now because if I had done everything on the list, I would’ve been so stressed out from seeking epic-ness, that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it! Looking at the list now, I’m happy to think that I’ll do the rest of the list next summer.

 Scrolling though the list, the last item is staring me in the face. #100: Change someone’s life. At the beginning of the summer we talked about this one a lot. Maybe we should volunteer somewhere with people, work at a food kitchen or something. We never got around to it though. I’ve been thinking about this last item a lot. Especially as a close friend of my family recently passed away. I guess you can never know what kind of influence you have on the people around you. When someone dies, everyone talks a lot about that person and how amazing they were, how many people loved them, and how they changed lives. However, I’m not planning on dying anytime soon, and I won’t be present at my own funeral to know whether I changed anyone’s life. I guess I can never feel confident (or possibly cocky) enough to mark this item off the list, because I can never know who’s life I may have affected. 

This is something I’ve been thinking about all summer, and hopefully I’ll be able to remember for the rest of my life. I want to live my life in a way that it might change someone else’s life. I don’t know exactly how that will look, but I can try. I want to be the best person I can. I want to be the kind of person that people can look up to. I want to be the kind of person who can give good advice. I want to be the kind of person who can use her own experiences to help others. Maybe I won’t ever know whose life I’m changing, but I truly hope one day I inspire someone to be a better person. I leave you the way I started this blog, here’s the full list:

100 Things to do Before Leaving For College:

1. Get accepted to college

2. Make a collage of pictures to take with me to college

3. Cook a five-course meal

4. Donate to charity

5. Visit the tourist sites of Norfolk

6. Have a spa day

7. Go to Virginia Beach for a day

8. Go to a baseball game

9. Watch all the Harry Potter movies in one day

10. Perform for the public

11. Make a music video

12. Ask someone for their phone number, and actually get it

13. Eat a banana split

14. Build a snowman

15. Devise an elaborate and unbeatable senior prank

16. Skip a stone

17. Go on a hike

18. Swim in a pond, a pool, a lake, or an ocean

19. Build-a-bear

20. Volunteer for a cause

21. Go ice skating

22. Wash the car

23. Go kayaking

24. Memorize the handshake from the parent trap

25. Get a haircut

26. Get a free makeover

27. Go to Busch Gardens

28. Draw with sidewalk chalk

29. Meditate

30. Enter a contest

31. Roll down a hill

32. Read ten books

33. Plant a tree

34. Go star gazing  

35. Get into the Virginian Pilot

36. Build a fort  

37. Write a letter to my future children

38. Play Frisbee

39. Go biking

40. Do a color by numbers picture

41. Stay awake for 24 hours

42. Go to a FREE concert

43. Learn about my great-grandparents

44. Do yoga

45. Watch a sunrise  

46. Draw a portrait

47. Put something on youtube

48. Try foreign cuisine

49. Make a soufflé  

50. Eat crazy ballpark food (changed from beat all 15 levels of tetris)

51. Have fried green tomatoes

52. Make a list of my favorite things

53. Go to an antique store

54. Finish a puzzle  

55. Make my own soundtrack

56. Send letters to 3 random people

57. Visit a graveyard at night  

58. Make an echo

59. Wear fake nails

60. Write on a bathroom stall

61. Play a song on the piano

62. Break the law

63. Play Life

64. Get cornrows

65. Use a disposable camera

66. Go a day without cellphone, ipod, or computer

67. Visit a museum

68. Wash the dog

69. Be in two places at once

70. Dress like a hippie

71. See a play

72. Read a romance novel

73. Hug a tree

74. Eat a pack of bubble gum all at once

75. Blow bubbles

76. Visit an animal shelter

77. Run a race

78. Sleep outside

79. Blast some music and dance

80. Get lost on purpose and find the way back

81. Hit a homerun

82. Choose a role model

83. Have a slumber party  

84. Watch a foreign film

85. Check something out at the library

86. Eat a whole box of oreos in one sitting  

87. Learn to play the harmonica

88. Play basketball

89. Play golf

90. Crochet something

91. Complete a New York Times crossword puzzle

92. Take a freezing cold shower  

93. Eat sushi

94. Make a blog

95. Go church hopping 

96. Make a time capsule, including a letter to yourself

97. Have a tea party 

98. Have an Audrey Hepburn movie marathon 

99. Make cookies or brownies for someone 

100. Change someone’s life