Excited-ness.

Oh my goodness. I am so excited! I just realized that I'm just another month away from starting my senior year and preparing for college! College seems to be on my mind a whole lot lately...like a whole lot. Take for example: today, my aunt in Chicago called my mom. During the phone call, they start talking about me and college and where I want to go. Well, certain events happened and I ended up with the phone in my hand, talking to her. Since she's already had two of her own children to go through college, she started telling me all this stuff that I get to look forward to doing and what stuff that I'm up against when it comes to Duke. She told me all about SAT prep courses, competition in Chicago which made me think about the competition I have to face around the world when it comes to getting into Duke, and volunteer service hours. After the phone call, I was completely overwhelmed with information and wanted to go hide under a rock and be a hermit the rest of my life. There's no way I'm getting into Duke! It's crazy that kids have been working on this stuff since they started middle school! Of course, I already knew this, but I happened to be one of those kids who didn't find this out until after middle school. You see, the school I went to for most of my life never told us about this stuff. I'm pretty sure that since they were so far back in the seventies, they didn't even know how competitive everything is! I'm not even joking. My first school was soo far back that they thought college was still an easy thing to get into. Wrong they are! So now I'm far behind on everything when it comes to being competitive. I'm pretty sure that the only way I can get into Duke would be for them to really like my personality, my leadership skills, what I bring to the table, and take into consideration the academic life I have lived and what restrictions were placed on me. But most of all, the only reason I'll ever get into Duke is by the grace of God. Only He can place me there. But I'm really afraid that He's going to send me somewhere I don't love. Because, you all know, I love Duke. I'm just afraid that just because I love Duke, He'll send me somewhere else. Really, that's been the story of my life. I've had cheerleading captain and volleyball captain taken from me (because my school closed down...that's another story), I never heard about Duke's TIP program or anything like that, and I've never been able to really be where I want because God always sends me to the places I don't love. And really, that's my biggest fear. I'll cry my heart out if I don't get accepted to Duke because I already love it.
But enough of the sad story and back to the title of this blog post. I'm soo excited! Today, I was talking to mom about college (it seems like that topic is always in our conversation these days) and how much money she'll be spending on me next year. Between many SATs, multiple ACTs, college dorm room supplies, senior trip, sports fees, graduation gowns, graduation cards, a yearbook, a new backpack (hopefully!), college application fees, and class of 2012 clothing, it seems like our money will be dwindling this year. So, we came up with a plan. In order for us not to spend sooo much money at one time, she has given me the okay to go ahead and start collecting my college dorm room supplies one at a time. So of course, the girl in me is screaming, "Yes! A chance to go shopping for cool college stuff!"  Trust me, you don't know how excited I am to start collecting stuff for college! It just makes everything feel so real! I'm just overly excited that I can start collecting things for college and start requesting gift cards to places like PBteen (my Chicago auntie can help me with a gift card from there since she shops there for her daughter), Target, and Wal-Mart for my birthday and Christmas and any other occasion I can use to get stuff for college. And, being the nerd I am, I've already made a list of things I need to take when I go to college. Don't worry, I've made a list of all the deadlines for the college applications, too. Well, at least those I can access now. Some schools I'm planning on applying to won't let me access the deadlines and applications until the first of August. But I do have my priorities straight when it comes to that stuff.
I can only pray that God leads me where He wants me to go. And trust me, every chance I get I'm praying about Duke. I'm praying that He'll protect my heart when it comes to application time and when it comes to getting the letters in the mail. I'm praying that there won't be so many tears, that there will be more laughter and joy than tears. I'm praying that He'll show me the way and show me where He wants me to go. I'm praying that He'll shut all the doors except the one school I'm supposed to go to. And I hope you guys will be nice enough to pray that with me too.
-hannah.
p.s. For those of you who don't know what Duke looks like...here's a sneak peak. :)
      


This picture is a picture of one of the dorms on West Campus. West Campus is home to the sophomores, juniors, and seniors. This particular dorm was blocked off by a fraternity, I believe. Since Duke asks for all students to stay on campus for three years, what the fraternities and sororities at Duke do is block off a section of the dorms and dedicate it to their fraternity or sorority by living together with their brothers and sisters, respectively.





That's the famous Duke Chapel. It's so amazingly beautiful! The entire West Campus has the same gothic theme as what you see here, and the gothic theme is so beautiful! Why wouldn't someone want to go there?



This is one of the dorm "hallways." Over to the left, you can see the door that leads to the inside of the actual dorm hallway. Duke had set up a dorm so we would be able to see what exactly everything looked like. But, if you were to walk straight out of the "hallway," you would come to the courtyard of the first picture.