Lana feels

I can't believe this. I'm leaving for school in 12 days and I'm SO not ready. There's all the material stuff, for one thing. Packing, checklists, boots to break in, clothes to label, things to decide, laundry, cleaning, more packing, just general insanity. It's like leaving for college, except not, cause I'm only fourteen, not eighteen. I should probably start from the beginning. I think that would be when we moved here, cause before that I wouldn't have seriously considered it. So that was about a year and a half ago, spring break of eighth grade. I left Pelham, NY, and moved to Oak Park, IL, a similar but bigger suburb of Chicago. It was less traumatic than I had thought it would be, because I made friends easily, and people were nice, and it's a nice town and all of that fun stuff. So, I finished 8th grade, had a dull summer brightened by a visit from Bri and Dana from Pelham, and started 9th grade. At the same time, my best friend Amy started 9th grade in NY, but at a boarding school in Poughkeepsie. And that's really where it all began, with her, as do so many of the stories in my life. But that's for another entry. So, 9th wasn't bad, some good grades, some bad, lots of new friends, new experiences, all sorts of stuff. And lots of fights with my parents, mainly my mother, which again is another tale. So around new years, I decided I wanted to go to boarding school. So I bugged my parents about it, and they said no. And I found one, and kept pestering and reasoning and persuading, and eventually they said yes. They always do. So I found one, and then I had to really decide if I wanted to go, and I eventually decided I did, and so now I have 12 days. AAAAGH! It's scary. I've never been away from home for more than about 6 weeks before, and while I've never really been homesick, it's still scary. I won't be home until my birthday, and that only cause it falls at Thanksgiving break. And then after that, it's a month 'till Winter break, and then two or three 'till spring break, and then another two or three till summer. But it seems like it's going to be such a cool year! And it's so pretty there, nestled into the Rockies like it grew there, it looks like a postcard or something. And the people all seem nice, and I think it'll be good, but I'll miss my friends, and my sister, and my daddy, and my puppy, and my bunny, and even my psychotic mother and her psychotic dog. But I'll make new friends, and relationships, and all sorts of things. I just can't decide whether I'm more excited or sad or scared, so I'm settling for a blend of all of them. Phew, I feel better now...

Alanna