Sometimes I think about the people that I've gone to school with who are doing productive and interesting things with their lives and wonder if they're flukes, and if they feel like they are frauds the way I do.

Seven friends/people I know from home:

- One went to UPenn and double majored in biochem and English. She quit her position as first chair in Penn's orchestra to direct plays for an underground Shakespeare company and sing in a Catholic church choir. She declined positions at UChicago, UCLA, Columbia, and other med schools in order to stay in Philly at UPenn Med and hopes to complete their joint MD/MBA program in the next four years. One day she wants to be a fashion designer or fashion magazine editor.

- One went to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, overcoming a heart problem and various injuries to get in. By the time he graduated this year, he was second in command of his platoon and had completed an internship with the NSA. He got drafted for submarines and now is in nuclear power school in Charleston.

- One went to Lehigh and graduated a semester early with his degree in computer science. He did artificial intelligent work for the government in Virginia this summer, and now he's finishing up his masters at Lehigh. For free.

- One went to St. Peter's with a full ride - and hated it. He got an internship with a law firm in Newark, and got a job there after graduating in three years with a degree in philosophy. He hated the job and quit, spent some time in Tunisia, and now is starting law school at Washington & Lee.

- One went to Villanova and is finishing up his degree with honors in philosophy. He's applying to a number of philosophy graduate programs, including ones at Oxford, Cambridge, and Australia National. In his spare time he plays classical and jazz piano and works on learning various metal pieces on the guitar.

- Two went to Stanford. One just finished an internship in Germany and is finishing up his degrees in biomechanical engineering and music performance - piano. The other is finishing up his two degrees in physics and music performance - classical saxophone - and both are applying to music graduate programs at Manhattan School of Music, Peabody Conservatory, and Florida State, among others.

I'm still in touch with all of them but one, I've known most of them since I was at least 14, and I therefore know that most of them are as great as the look on paper. I don't think I am. I don't feel like I am.

I don't know. I know plenty of post-grad successes, of my college friends. People working at Radio City, Lincoln Center, Nickelodeon, ACS. People helping to run towns. People in grad programs at UPenn, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Columbia. I know that you make your own success; it doesn't just come easily. Mostly I'm satisfied with my undergrad career, both socially and academically, but sometimes I wonder if I should have gone somewhere else. Not even Colgate or Vassar, but Fordham or Loyola or St. Joseph's or Fairfield. I don't feel like I've earned what "success" I've had. I don't feel like I worked very hard or very long for it. I don't feel like I deserve it. I know I can't change that now. I just wonder if I am where I'm supposed to be.

This post probably makes me sound like an ungrateful bitch. I'm not ungrateful. I just don't feel like I deserve what I have. Like everything else does, lately, it makes me wonder, who decides who deserves what?