college | cardigans and necklaces

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After three interesting years of high school, I am quickly approaching my final year at a pace I’m not too comfortable with. With being a senior comes a lot of responsibilities and tasks that need to be checked off the to-do list. There are campus tours that need to be done, capstone projects that need to be started, SATs to study for as well as take, applications to send off to colleges, senior dues to pay off, a GPA to keep up, a show choir to lead now that I’ve been appointed captain (I’m super stoked about this), and on top of all that, balance a job on my plate. I will say that trying to write this list down got me breathing a little heavier, but every senior has to go through this. I should be able to do it too.

From the list, I’ve started campus tours. I visited Kennesaw State University a few weeks ago. I didn’t take any pictures, which I currently regret, because I was like a kid in a candy store. The campus is super cool and KSU seemed technologically advanced and offers good programs. In a few days I will be visiting the University of Georgia and I’m quite excited to see what’s in store. Another exciting milestone is that I started working. My first official job! I work as a cashier at a local pizza restaurant and I’ve been loving it. I’m the kind of person who will take working over sitting at home watching TV any day! Plus as a cashier I also take in orders, so it’s been definitely helping me build confidence when speaking to new people and enhancing my customer service skills.

A project that I’ve recently started is starting to take my senior pictures. I still have yet to sign up with a studio to get both my yearbook and cap and gown pictures. When it comes to the scenes my mom and I decided to do our own, ones that catered more to who I am and backgrounds that express the real Allyson. Like everything I do, I like to add a bit of a twist. My mom and I thought it would be a good idea to do some pictures at home since it’s where I live and spent my entire high school life in. We decided to do more of a high fashion shoot for my pictures, so we waited on a rainy day to take some cool shots. What I like about the pictures is that they have a range from almost playful to something a little gothic. I look like one of those chicks from horror movies who’s about to haunt someone (honestly those shots were my personal favorite). The rest of my senior picture scenes are still yet to be taken and ideas are still being brought to the table. Honestly, I think I need a scene surrounded by Disney characters. Those who know me will tell you that Disney movies make up my life. What can I say? I’m still a five year old at heart, despite the fact, I may need to face some responsibilities that require a tad bit of growing up.

So I know it’s been a while but… I GOT INTO THE BETA CLUB!!!. When I first got the letter I was way excited and humbled because only a selected few get chosen. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was (I know, what rock do I live under), but I’ve always heard about how great it is for college applications so I knew this was going to be a great opportunity for me. I read the long and somewhat boring letter to find out more about the club but the gist of it is that it is an educational youth organization that encourages academic achievement, character, leadership, and service so it requires students to do work around the community. You earn points based on the service you do and for how long you do it. I was pumped when I heard about this because I’ve wanted to do community service for a while now but I’ve never seemed to get around to it. The best part is that I’m doing community service with some of my other friends so we get to be able to share these experiences with each other. They give you a certain amount of points that you must withhold in order to stay in the club as well as keeping up a 3.5 average or higher. When you sign up for BETA, you are given the option to attend the induction. At the BETA induction they talk about what you do in the club, a bit about its history, who are the officers, we pledged to stay pure (ok, that is not what we pledged), and induct new members into the club (I know, it sounds like a huge snooze fest). We had a dress code to go by, which they basically described to us as: “dress as you would if your grandmother was going to church”. To them that meant no jeans, t-shirts, tennis shoes, and any other informal wear of the sort. Wouldn’t have been easier to just say casual elegant?

Before the induction ceremony started my mom and I went through the halls of the school and took some pictures of the outfit. I also caught up with a few of my friends that I had not talked to since school started because we no longer have classes together. There were over 170 new sophomores being inducted that night and it was a long process. Trying to line up 170 chatty teenagers in alphabetical order was difficult and no one seemed to want to pay attention to the poor teacher who kept yelling over us to get our attention. I will say that he was not the man for the job, most of the students were taller than him and to top it all of he was sick, so yelling was difficult for him. They should have had some of the cheerleaders bring out their megaphones and allow the man to use it. The induction process was longer than I expected and it got sort of boring, then finally they started pinning kids and giving out certificates. Of course as the socially awkward person I am I went out there walking as if I was the tin man from the Wizard of Oz and needed oil in my joints. I thought I did completely fine just walking and smiling, in fact in my head the walk went down as if I was walking a catwalk or something… and then I saw my mom’s pictures. I wasn’t really smiling, and my walking was stiff and all over the place! But what can I say, at least my outfit looked good and took some attention away from my actions or at least I hope it did.

What I wore was a navy blue dress that had an open back which was covered with lace. I also wore a pearl necklace that had different subtle colors such as a pearl white, light grey, and a soft gold. The bracelet was pearl white as well as my earrings. My shoes were a nude color and brown to go along with the necklace. I made sure to keep the outfit more on the simple side because it was a semi formal event and I didn’t want to wear a color that wasn’t appropriate for the setting. The dress was very comfortable, especially since we were there for more than two hours. I started looking around at what some of the other girls were wearing and I saw a lot of the same things. I saw a lot of maxi and skater dresses paired up with long over sized cover ups. I also saw a lot of girls wearing sandals, I understand it’s still hot outside but this is a semi formal event people! I don’t know about you but when I think semi formal, sandals are definitely not the first thing that comes to mind. Yep! I’m up to a good start this year.