Quick Facts
Home: Dallas, Texas Favorite Movie: The Incredibles Favorite Singer/Bands: Franz Ferdinand, the Killers, the Beatles Favorite TV Show: "Fruits Basket," whatever's on the History Channel Favorite Food: New England clam chowder Favorite Subject: Physics Intended Major: Physics

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."
-- Albert Einstein

Hello! I'm Kristin, and I am from the illustrious locale of Dallas, Texas, home of... American Airlines? JFK's assassination? Who really knows? All I know is that I really don't think I'm going to survive senior year. I don't care what all those high school soap operas say—I am up to my eyebrows in homework and I have yet to see any of those senior privileges we supposedly have. Although, it is pretty cool to see freshmen cowering before my mighty awesomeness.

Anyways, I attend a Catholic all-girls school—yes, with the plaid skirt and everything. I actually have no idea what I'm going to do next year when I'll actually have to figure out what to wear every day... I don't have any clothes! How is this going to work? Hopefully no one will notice that I wear the same things every week... It'll also be weird having guys in class. I mean, I see guys all the time (we have two all-boy brother schools, so that's two times the football games, homecomings, and proms), but it's not quite the same as being in a class. And a math department that isn't terrible? The mind boggles.

So what do I do outside of avoiding my huge piles of homework? Mostly theater - I spend so much time in my school's theater, it should be illegal. Well, no, it shouldn't, because it's insanely fun! I met almost all of my friends through the stage, so it must be a pretty cool place. This fall, I'll actually be directing my own one-act as a part of my Theater IV class. I'm kind of intimidated; I've never been the take-charge, boss-people-around type. Hopefully my actors won't decide to mutiny or something, because I really don't think I could handle it!

When I'm not doing theater, I also dabble in some other stuff—I fence a little, tap a bit, do some Girl Scouting here and there... I also co-founded my school's chapter of Mu Alpha Theta, a national math honors society. I also just began a Texas-wide robotics competition where we build an entire robot in six weeks. Don't ask me when I sleep—I don't even remember what that is!

I suppose that brings me all the way to the big, scary C word: college. I believe I pretty much have my list of where I'll apply. Let's see, right now they are: Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, Rice, Harvey Mudd, Duke, University of Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, and MIT.

As you can see, almost all of them are way too hard to get into. I'd like to go to the Northeast, or at least somewhere very different from Texas. My parents are anxious to have me stay a bit closer, but I really feel that this is my chance to branch out—if I don't leave my bubble now, I doubt I'll ever get out. College is a chance to meet people entirely different from you, with different opinions, backgrounds, and tastes, and I don't want to miss out on that opportunity. Plus, in my opinion, it's high time I was on my own!

I've started all of my applications, but I haven't even touched any of the essays. All of my friends have made two, three drafts of theirs already—I swore I'd start them last weekend, but that didn't happen... maybe this weekend? Maybe? I'm also terrified of the SAT Subject Tests. Several of my schools need a science subject test, which I thought would be no problem—I'm good at science and math, and I took physics last year, so I'd just take that test and be done. But wait—my school only teaches me a third of what is on the test. Fan. Tastic. So now I'm trying to teach myself a year of physics in two months, and it is not working at all. Oh, well—c'est la vie. College will happen, life will happen, and there's no use killing yourself over it all.

Kristin