OCD, the Dude, and Me - By Lauren Roedy Vaughn Page 0,68
and smiled at me. We shared a long joyous stare and then drove home in silence because nothing more needed to be said for the night. As we pulled into my driveway, another line of Emily Brontë’s rose in my mind: “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
*CLASS ASSIGNMENT* 6/20
My College Choice Essay
(A)
Danielle Carmen Levine
English 12
Ms. Linda Harrison
Period 4
I know we’re supposed to wait until we graduate to call you by your first name, but I’m not really “calling you” Linda because I’m writing it. Hope that’s permissible. It’s a nice name. My middle name is Carmen, as you can see. It’s weird to think this is the last essay I will write for a grade in English class for all of high school. I have to just take a moment and let that sink in. New paragraph.
After many discussions at my house with my aunt Joyce and my parents, I’ve decided to go to UC Irvine. I don’t want to brag about myself in writing (although I think I’ve done that a couple of times this year), but I got a really high score on the verbal portion of the SATs (the math: not so much). The verbal score, I think, helped me get into colleges I probably wouldn’t have gotten into. I’m going to UC Irvine as a creative writing major. As serendipity (I love this word, thanks for fitting a few last minute vocabulary words into my head; I think they’ll come in handy) would have it, my friend Daniel got into UC Irvine and is going there, too, but he’s going undecided. My aunt said if we were sleeping together she would never let us attend the same college. But since that exchange is pretty much off the table because Daniel is gay, she saw it as all good.
Everybody is finding it very strange (even me) that I am going to go to college in the same area where, well, you know, a part of me stopped. You know from that one essay I read in class that a terrible thing happened to me in Orange County. I guess my mom had a talk about this situation with David, my yoga teacher, one day after class, and he told her that often you have to go back to a place of wounding to be fully healed. I don’t quite understand that, but I do feel like something in me is guiding me there. For one thing, their creative writing department is very good, and maybe I will learn how to be a better writer and do all the things you wish I could already do with my writing. I’ll e-mail you some stuff I write after I learn more (not that you didn’t teach me enough, just that I guess I wasn’t ready for all of it) and if you have time, you can tell me what you think.
So, I’m going to UC Irvine. I’m going to be an anteater. That’s a good mascot for me. I’m not ready to be a tiger or a Titan or anything that fierce yet. I think I’ve grown a lot this year, but I’m still scared about some things, and I’m probably always going to be obsessive and inattentive, so I have to “take ’er easy,” eat one ant at a time, if you will.
Comments from Ms. Harrison: Since there were no formal guidelines given for this essay, I will not lecture you on all the parentheticals and casual comments contained therein. I will just remind you, once again, to avoid “a lot” and “stuff.” Grow past that usage. Have a wonderful experience at UC Irvine. You deserve it.
*ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 6/25
Graduation
Commencement finally came for me. I wanted to wear my blue Chucks that I had recently painted the word abide across, but my father said I didn’t need those. He believed I was capable of going out in the world in heeled shoes, and, on my own, I could give over to the day and embrace the experience. After all, I had a hat—the graduation cap I would wear for this one day. I think I managed to handle things in a way that honored his wishes.
My parents dropped me off at the ceremony site early as was required for pictures and rehearsal. As I was walking in from the parking garage, Iggie appeared from out of nowhere. He threw an entire box of oragami art all over me. He didn’t say a word.