I am going to tell you about a rather wonderful, yet fleeting experience I had the summer before senior year. From the outside looking in, it could have been the experience of any 17-year-old. That spring I had been accepted to the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, a prestigious program, and I was ecstatic. All my hard work had finally paid off, all the English classes, poetry contests, and writing workshops …showed first 75 words of 1157 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1157 total…a profound effect on me. As my summer ended and I returned home, it dawned on me that in a few short days I would be starting my senior year of high school. All I could think of was that, in a year, I would be heading to college. If my seventeenth summer was just a taste of what my life could be like pretty soon, then I cannot wait to eat the whole thing.