By Esther Zuckerman

We have this joke on the Chronicle. It has to do with a certain member of the staff (Michael Kaplan), his iPod, its “top 25 most played” playlist, a road trip to Fullerton and Natasha Bedingfield’s song “Unwritten.” You can put together the details. Now this has been a running joke for the members of the Chronicle staff for over a year now and it still isn’t any less funny.

In the song Natasha Bedingfield describes how “the rest is still unwritten” in her deliciously pop ode to carpe diem. Now this sounds stupid but the lyrics of that song, silly as they may be, have become more poignant to me in these last days of high school (and not just because I won’t hear them on the Chronicle anymore). I have this eerie feeling that my time at Harvard-Westlake is unfinished, or shall I say unwritten. I know that literally I am done. I have fulfilled all my requirements, taken all my necessary tests, gone to prom, had fun, etc., etc., but I have this weird, ominous feeling that maybe I’m not totally done. Maybe I still have some things left to accomplish within the hallowed halls of 3700 Coldwater Canyon. Maybe I’ll regret not having accomplished certain things.

There are those that are literally “unwritten:”

1. I never wrote a beat enterprise story for the Chronicle. This is a story that Chronicle staff members are supposed to write every year based on something they discover from their beat. I never wrote one this year. I feel horrible about it. I’m sorry, Mrs. Neumeyer.
2. I never wrote an extra credit movie essay on the movie “All the President’s Men” for AP U.S. Government. It’s not that I want the extra credit. I just really wanted to do a political analysis on one of my favorite movies.
3. In ninth or 10th grade, I can’t remember, I had this wild idea that I wanted to write a lengthy paper on the seedy aspects of London in literature. Maybe I’ll save that one for college?

Yes, as you can see I have wanted to write a lot that I never got around to. But then there are also the things that are only figuratively unwritten:

1. I never published the personal essay I wrote about my butt. It had to do with the fall out from this one time at the beginning of this year when I was made fun of it for its size.
2. In a related issue: I never stood up to that person who made fun of me for it.
3. (This one is one of those big Judy Blume-like confessions, bear with me.) I always expected to have my first boyfriend in high school. That never happened. I realized in the “Sex in College” senior seminar that my knowledge of relationship situations comes almost solely from “Sex and the City.”

It’s not that I want to stick with high school. Honestly I’m not. I don’t want to be one of those cynics saying (while rolling their eyes and affecting a pretentious aspect) “high school it SUCKED,” but one can only hope it won’t be the high point, right?  I want to seal the metaphorical envelope containing my time here at Harvard-Westlake and send it off to Siberia.
But on the other hand I do feel unfinished. And in a way this column is not finished. I’m completely changing it the morning we go to press.