The years I spent in high school were truly memorable to say the least. Looking back on those days now as a much more mature, responsible, and overall better person, I believe that the experiences I had over those three years are responsible for making me the person I am today. Paradoxically enough, it seems the least enjoyable aspects of my high school career were the most important in shaping me into the man I am today.
Until recently my hometown high school, Bedford, only had tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade in the high school building, despite the fact that high school curriculum begins in ninth grade. I was in the last class coming out of the three middle schools to not have spent ninth grade in the high school. So as far as I am concerned, the true “high school experience” didn’t begin for me until the fall of 2004 upon entering the tenth grade.
The majority of us tenth graders at the high school on the first day of class, it was our first day ever even stepping one foot into the school. For me and a few other students, it was on the contrary. Our middle schools did not offer Chemistry, and so we would go to the high school for first period and then go back to the middle school for the remainder of the school day when we were still in ninth grade. This gave us the advantage of knowing where to go and the fastest way to get there once that dreaded first day of high school came rolling around. As for the rest of the student body, they weren’t so lucky. I’ll never forget seeing all of my good friends staring at the map with a look of complete and utter confusion. So I just did what any one of them would have done to me: give them a hard time. It was all in good fun. We talked about our teachers, and how they gave each one of us the whole welcome-to-high-school-now-get-to-work line in our respective classes. Those of us who weren’t too close over the summer caught up on the times and what we did, where we went, and blah blah blah.
It wasn’t really...