I just graduated high school in May, valedictorian of my class. I'm the one who's supposed to go off to Harvard now, right? Wrong.

Oh, the lies they tell you in high school. "Work hard and you'll go to college for free." It's all bull. I worked my off, applied for a ton of scholarships, and only got one that won't even pay for half of everything.

I don't know, is it because I'm Caucasian? Is it because I don't fit anyone's standards? Why?

I applied to 3 colleges, of course got accepted by all of them. But it's paying for one that's the problem.

In all honesty, I wanted to go off to Atlanta, study business with a minor in creative writing, find a nice Korean American guy and live happily ever after. But, not only did I have no way to actually get to Atlanta, I didn't want to go on my own and then the issue of paying for college arose.

I NEVER thought college would be a problem for me, but now I'm becoming more and more depressed because of it. All of the kids who graduated in the top ten with me will be going off to college this fall, and where will I be? If I'm lucky, working a minimum wage job.

I was always the smart one. I was the one who was supposed to have worked from nothing to something because God gave me an academic gift. School was my thing. Learning is my forte. I'm lost without it. Completely lost.

I could take out student loans or get financial aid, but I'm terrified of what may come after college. What if I can't find a job with my degree? The economy right now, so it's possible. Then how will I pay everything back? My parents are both high school drop outs. Don't get me wrong, my mom knows just about everything to do with running a business because she learned as she worked. And, even though I hate my ing "father" and he's a lazy idiot, he does have a talent when it comes to repairing anything. If he wasn't so damn lazy and had a heart, we wouldn't be struggling financially and he might actually pay my mother child support. But, even though they are smart and talented people, they got stuck in the low paying jobs because they had no high school diploma. I have a diploma now, but in this world, you need a degree, too. And even then it might not get you a job in this economy.

My point is, I've known financial struggle all my life. I don't want to die knowing it. I don't want my children to know the struggle I've known. I just can't keep on this way.

We don't have a car. I'll put that out there. We have to walk anywhere we go. Once in a while we'll be lucky enough to get a ride somewhere. The only reason I am still with my boyfriend (we've had problems) is because through him I actually have access to a vehicle.

So, I can't get to a college on a regular basis. I could live in the dorms, but how would I get there in the first place? Be grateful for your vehicles, people, even if they're old and ugly. If they can get you somewhere, you better be grateful. And even if we had a car, gas prices are insane.

Because of this, I've considered online college. But more issues arise because of that. The first is that I have no stable internet connection. I am picking up someone else's signal to get online, and it is not reliable. I could walk down to McDonalds everyday and use their wifi. But I'm setting myself up for harassment from the male gender like I am always subjected to when I walk around my neighborhood alone. I do like to think of myself as beautiful, and apparently others do, too. But beauty can be a curse. I have experienced it. And when I say harassment, I don't mean, "hey y how you doin'?" I mean a bunch of older freaks asking if I'm 18 and offering me a ride. Eww.

And I live in a black neighborhood. I'm not being racist, but let's be honest, the ghetto is dangerous. Plus I'm white. And I live in southern America. Racism is very much alive. Trust me. Black people usually don't bother me and all of my friends are black, but you will always encounter the crazy racist here. There's like no way to avoid it. I've been called by racial slurs, and I've even dealt a few myself to the s who want to with me. I ain't scared to tell someone like it is. It just gets annoying and tiresome, you know? It's a tough world, and you gotta be ruthless to make it here, but it gets hard. So yeah, I'm one of the few white people in my neighborhood. I live around blacks and Hispanics. There's a lot of Vietnamese and Chinese in my city, but they had the sense to go to the better side of town. Smart people. Smart people indeed. There's a Chinese take-out place near my house, but I guarantee you that family doesn't live near here lol.

Yeah, crazy people out and about. Therefore, if I'm walking somewhere, I never leave the house without my brass knuckles.

If I did do online college, it's the issue of what to study. I have to study something I absolutely love in order to have the motivation to do it. Motivation is a major necessity when you're not sitting in front of a teacher being showed how to do everything. I can be an autodidact (self-teacher), but I have to like what I'm learning. And even then, I can barely keep it up.

So, business is out for me. I've always wanted to own my own business, but I can't do online college for it. It will be too boring. I have no passion for marketing, financing, etc. I just want to own a business because it won't be a boring career. I'll be doing something everyday. And I've come to the conclusion, if my mom can learn more about business than a college graduate by actually WORKING IN A BUSINESS, so can I. Working is part of my education plans.

I'd absolutely love to study creative writing, but it's kind of a useless degree, and I don't think I would learn anything in college that I haven't already learned from writing my own novel and reading a ton of books. Writing comes easy to me now, though, trust me, it was when I first started doing it seriously, as a freshman in high school. I learned through actually doing. I didn't need a teacher to tell me what to do.

Conclusion: you learn by actually doing and continuing to practice.

But, you still need that degree. .

I'm on my last nerve here. I'm limited to working at the places I can walk to, and it gets as hot as hell where I live in the summer. I do not want to go to work every day stinking of sweat or passing out with a heat . My last chance for getting out of this financial hole is my novel. I put my heart and soul into it, and I'm working hard to edit and perfect it as much as possible. I could query agents now, but I don't want to until I know it is as good as I can make it. It would be the first of a fantasy series, and I'm pretty sure this fantasy is not your average sword and sorcery piece of crap. It does not have the usual medieval setting, and I try to keep most fantasy cliches out. I incorporate African, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures into the book's setting, as well as things I came up with on my own. I breathed life into my characters and set them into that world. It's a decent read, I have enough confidence to say that about it.

But, literature is tough business. Enough said. I only hope God blesses my writing enough that it can be something.

Until then, however, college is a priority. Online college... My last passion that I could study in college is a foreign language. I want to learn Korean, obviously because I love KPop and the Korean people. But I've looked and looked, and there is no online college offering Korean. They don't really offer any foreign language. The only thing I could find was ASU online. They offer a bachelors in Spanish. Seems like my last hope.

I took Spanish as a freshman. I enjoyed it, I was good at it. The only reason I didn't keep taking more advanced courses was because of schedule clashes. I even still remember a bit of Spanish, and I can pronounce it all very well, I think. Plus there are a lot of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans where I live so I have plenty of people to practice with. My Spanish teacher was one of the best teachers I've ever had, and she loved me so much. She made sure we learned Spanish by speaking it to us everyday and making us reply and even making us do skits in Spanish everyday. I enjoyed learning the language because of her. I really do love her, and she deserves better than that crappy high school.

Her dream was to be a translator, but she got stuck teaching when she left California for Alabama with her husband. It makes me so sad to think of how badly she got cheated out of a good career that she could enjoy. I don't want to end up like her if I get a degree in Spanish. I mean, I wouldn't mind teaching if it was in like Korea. Obviously I would be teaching English and not Spanish, but it doesn't matter what your degree is to teach English in Korea. So yeah, I could enjoy getting a degree in Spanish, by the grace of God get my novel published, and run off to Korea with my sister. I could be happy if I take this path.

I only want money so I don't have to worry about bills. I don't have to be rich, only stable. I just want to be happy in life, and my happiness comes from being with people I love, writing, creating art, reading great books, being in nature, playing with animals, and eating awesome food. Millions of dollars isn't required for that.

And I do love the Spanish language. Right now I'm listening to some of Shakira's old songs in Spanish (because I absolutely adore her.) Hearing it again is wonderful. I can just sink into the beauty of the words. And I still want to visit Argentina one day. Don't know why, but I've always felt like something was calling me there. Knowing Spanish would help if I ever go.

So, Spanish could work. It could. If you've read this far, what do you think? Do comment, por favor! (please) Should I do ASU online and study Spanish? And if you've taken online college, please please please tell me your experience with it. Did it work out for you? Thanks so much. *bows*

zRebel fighting!