If you want to read the story from the beginning click here.(https://wp.me/p2b25R-fw)

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Winter 2008

I have selected four colleges to apply to —Virginia Tech, the College of William and Mary, University of Virginia (UVA), and George Madison. I don’t want to attend George Mason in Fairfax, where my dad is a professor. If Dad had said so, I would have reconsidered. I probably would get financial aid or reduced tuition for being the offspring of a faculty member. But I want to go away from home and live by myself like Krishna is doing. My friends Dan and Naomi are thinking the same. Applying to all these colleges, writing the essays, and filling out the forms takes a long time. Like Ms. Kasie, our career counselor had said, I have an advantage because of my extracurricular activities, excellence in sports, and being a reporter at The Pulse.

I am still thinking about participating in college sports, preferably baseball. Players like Ryan Zimmerman were alumni of UVA. I am not sure what is going to happen to DAN the Band. Depends on where Dan and Naomi end up, I guess. Anyhow, the possibility of our continuing the band seems bleak at the moment.

It is the month of February. We are busy preparing for senior class activities. Dave has asked me to write a piece on what it feels like to be graduating from High School. I have several ideas and am putting down some notes. I am not sure whether I should bring back the shooting incident and offer another commentary. I think about it. What good will it do to stoke terrible feelings? Graduation is a time of happiness, of looking for a new beginning and a future. I am also supposed to help Gary, the photographer for the Pulse, in preparing a script for a senior class video we are planning to make. Interviewing the students, editing the footage, and adding the voiceover is going to be a challenge. Besides, I have college applications to fill out, including writing essays on some stupid topics. It’s keeping me busy well into May, by which time I will have selected the college I will be attending. Dad asks once in a while how it’s going, and I say it’s going well.

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To read chpater 17, click here.https://wp.me/p2b25R-hn