I planned to finish school – really I did. I was going to go to college and major in Finance, and make enough money to support my designer shoe habit, but life happened and things changed. I don’t go to classes anymore, but my shoe collection is quite nice.

Many people have questioned my decision to give up on school. My brother thinks I am wasting my life.

“Your looks are not going to last forever,” he always says.

That’s why I am working extra hard now.

Dad always attempts to take my side, saying: “She can always go back to school later,” as if my modeling career was a short term whim. No, Dad, I intend to do this for as long as I can (and that better be longer than a few months).

I didn’t plan on being a model at first. Come to think of it, I really didn’t have a plan at all. Modeling just sort of happened to me, and I jumped at the opportunity. I was 16 when I talked my mom into letting me withdraw out of school. I had a contract in one hand and a promise that I would take classes with a personal tutor.

I could see the pain in her face. She didn’t want to say yes, and she didn’t want to say no. Instead, she quietly signed her name on the required forms and set the paper down. It was hard for my mom. She knew it was the right thing to do, but she worried whether I was making the right choice.

I however, knew I was making the right choice. Although I didn’t finish school, I’ve never been dumb. I immediately hired an accountant to invest the money I didn’t need – in case my brother was correct. I’m not so stupid to ignore the fact that the industry is fickle, and that this could all go away in a second.

But while my friends are living on noodles and futons, I’m lounging in my loft between shoots. They are sacrificing daily – hitting the books – with the hopes they’d land a salary that would match the amount of money I make in a week.

The point is, I’m doing fine, even though I’m a dropout. Maybe it means I don’t make it back to school. Maybe I never get that finance degree. But the way I see it if I am making enough money to support myself and buy all the designer shoes I want; who even cares?