"So, what college are you going to?" Don't people understand that this is the most annoying question someone can ask a teenager? I've been asked that at least three times today and it's only nine in the morning. Why do people have such a strong desire to know where I'll be spending the next four years of my life? And I can never answer with a simple "I don't know" because the adults won't allow it. Even when I tell people a few of my ideas, they feel the need to throw in their two cents and tell me why that's the wrong choice and the ultimate mistake.

Does everybody assume that if I just try to decide my life for myself I am doomed to failure? Maybe, just maybe, I don't care what the careers of the future are or that I will never be a Harvard graduate. Maybe I'll have fun being a starving actress rather than a rocket scientist. What happened to doing whatever makes me happy? When I was little, I wanted to be a mermaid. People used to smile and call me cute - but I didn't want to be called cute. I wanted to be taken seriously and told that I could be anything I wanted to be and that no matter what path I chose, everyone would stand beside me.

I think as people get older they lose sense of what life is really supposed to be about. They can't even enjoy a magic show without looking to find the logical reason behind every trick. Adults change so gradually that they don't even realize the transformation until it's too late. Once you've lost your childhood, you can never go back and find it because all of the years of experience have poisoned your minds. It's not fair! And maybe I do suffer from a severe case of Peter Pan Syndrome, but call me crazy - I would do anything if only I could wish to be a mermaid again. c