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Every year my high school had a “formal” instead of a prom. Freshmen-seniors were welcome to come and there was always a new location each formal. We’d have a winter and spring formal and I went to every formal regardless of if I had a date or not. We were not allowed to leave unless there was a special circumstance, so I invented a game to pass the time with my friends, “crack shipping.” Basically everyone thinks of a name of a character (can be limited to a franchise/series or limitless) and on the count of three everyone says the name and those characters are in a romantic relationship. We’d have ridiculous ships, sensible ships, self ships, incest ships, and never-in-a-million-years ships as well as endless laughs and good times. It was especially good the one year my BFFs date decided to actually come up with the story behind the relationship(s).

During my sophomore year in highschool there was an optional trip to Italy. I was the youngest person on the trip as everyone else was a junior or senior and I didn’t really know anyone aside from the lady leading the trip, a chaperon, and my mother who came with me on the trip. Italy is absolutely gorgeous and I had an amazing time on the trip and I still fondly remember it to this day.

Freshmen year of high school, I was in a new school and did not know anyone there. There was a trip every year that each grade went on (differing depending on your grad [ie the juniors went on a different trip than the sophomores, etc]). The freshmen trip that year was to go backpacking in the mountains. I was far away from home in the woods with complete strangers and I loved telling a ghost story and scaring the piss out of them. It’s been one of my fondest memories.

It was my 18th birthday and my parents were out of town. I was on my own and didn’t really have any plans when my BFF messaged me asking me what I was doing after wishing me a happy birthday. I informed her I didn’t have anything planed and she offered to take me to an amusement park. She and her parents bought the tickets the same day, I met up with them at their house and we drove off to the amusement park. It’s still one of my favorite memories.

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