Pleasantly stunned.

Fun fact: I go to your cliche Texas high school. We love football, have pep rallies, have a massive student body, and, with this, comes your fair share of hierarchies. It's not necessarily the cheerleaders and the football players, but they are definitely in the upper tiers. But it's that group who just gets everything, you know? Because my high school is so big, it isn't just a few people...there's a group of about 30 guys and girls who sort of get everything. It's a weird system.

A few weeks ago, the senior class voted for superlatives. You know what I'm talking about, the "most likely to be famous" or "most athletic" or "class favorite". A guy and girl will be picked for each category and the winners will be announced at prom. The categories are... (I think)

Class favorite

Most likely to succeed

Most athletic

Most likely to appear on a magazine

Most involved

Most spirited

Most unusual

Prom king/queen

I'm pretty sure that's it.

Anyway, it was kind of a given that most of the awards handed out at prom for these superlatives would come from that core group of thirty. Pretty much no one outside of that circle will even be put on the ballot. These were just the nominations--the preliminaries, if you will.

Jokingly, I told a bunch of my friends to vote for me for the "most likely to succeed". I probably had about twenty votes. Yeah, I have a good reason (my novel project!) but I knew that I wasn't going to be nominated, so why not have fun with it? And I mean really. "Most likely to succeed"? Does that imply that everyone not nominated is going to fail? Poor word choice, CHS.

Fast forward to today. I'm sitting in my math class, joking with my friend about how some people in our class are ridiculously annoying and trying to figure out what is going on with our calculators when this girl in my class comes over and gives me a folded piece of paper. Intrigued, I opened it up.

And was pretty much floored. This is what it said:

"CONGRATULATIONS!!!! You have been nominated to receive an award at the 2011 Senior Prom. Remember that the winners are selected by popular vote. No nominees are allowed to campaign by posting flyers, posters, or passing out materials. Good luck to each of you!!! Please plan to be at the prom at 12:30 am on April 9 to hear the winners announced."

Are you KIDDING me? This is just a little ridiculous. I started laughing to myself and the whole table of girls that sat close to me were just kind of watching. They were saying "Oh, good job!" but they were still staring at me. A few of those girls are in the Core 30.

And, in case you aren't aware, I am NOT in the Core 30.

I'm flattered and tickled pink. I probably won't win (I still have to face a popularity contest with others who are going to be very successful) but still! How cool is it that I was even nominated? My name will be on the ballot to be voted on by nearly the whole senior class! Craziness.

So yes. An interesting turn of events in the life of Linley. I'll keep you posted.