strange lands

This past month has been so incredibly crazy and wonderful and eye-opening. I traveled to California for the first time to visit Mills college and see a friend, started the layout for the magazine I'm co-editing, have been prepping for finals as well as the ACT (which I took last weekend) with hours and hours of tutoring, and got accepted to my first college (the American University of Paris) :-)
With the first semester coming to a close and my hands busy scrolling through student reviews of colleges I've applied to, everything has really been put into prospective insofar as how little time I really have left in Austin and how much I am going to miss it here. I've always had an appreciation for Hyde Park, but now on my way home from school or during walks to the coffee shop near my house I am noticing more and more just how beautiful my neighborhood's streets are, lined with awnings of trees draped in faded foliage and made of narrow little hills and cars of assorted eras and guitar-weilding lumberjack looking men and bikers and pink-blue skies. My sister and I often play songs on the front steps of my house, and while I strum at guitar chords I can't help but feel that the music sounds so much better because of the atmosphere of my strange, quiet, dead end street. Everything feels so peaceful in the place I'm in, mentally and physically. The only slight discomfort I feel is in the thought of having to leave this little slice of heaven right when I feel I'm finally getting in the swing of living here. It's exciting to think of the future, but also terrifying.
Here is a photo diary of some of my favorite moments from the past several weeks.

waiting for my ride on the drag after an ACT tutor session.

Me and Joseph shot and interviewed the lovely Jennifer for Cream :)

Mills College in Oakland, CA!

After the Mills tour I went to visit my friend Natalie, who took me to a secluded cliff where the Golden Gate bridge could be seen as if it was right in front of us.