I was one of those kids who actually liked High School. I had friends and my teachers like me. I didn’t really apply myself but people though well of me (well, the adults did)
My Senior year was fine. English was the only class I had to take and all we did was read so I was in heaven. Everything else I took (Latin, Anatomy, ROTC) I took because I wanted to so I enjoyed them. I had early release so I’d go to my friend’s house every day after 5th period and we’d go back at 2:00 for track practice.
The biggest problem was College. I’d worked for 3-1/2 years to get into the Air Force and in January of my Senior year, I was disqualified due to flat feet. I had high SAT scores and honor level classes but my rank was pretty bad (I didn’t do my homework for the first 3 years) so getting into college on short notice was horrible. I didn’t think they even still disqualified for flat feet.
Another downer, after getting disqualified from the Air Force, I decided not to waste too much of my free time in ROTC so I resigned my position as Group Commander. Because of that, my Colonel treated me like dirt for 5 months.
Also, I was picked to be Senior of the Year and no one even knew about it because I wasn’t one of the “shiny, happy people”. No one cared what the dirt poor foster kid did.
I didn’t go to Prom. I had no desire and 6 years later, I don’t regret it one bit.
I did go to my graduation but only because my mom and foster mom would have killed me if I didn’t. I’d been to enough award ceremonies with ROTC so one more ceremony was kind of pointless in my mind.
I only got my yearbook because I got it for free by doing lots of Senior Class projects. I threw it away 2 years ago.
I’m still best friends with one of two from High School. The other one is just a friend. Everyone else, I can’t remember the last time I talked to them.
I think the people who say high school is the happiest time of your life are disillusioned. They remember only the good stuff, but for the most part, people are miserable in high school. It does get easier to forget the bad stuff and to look back fondly of high school but I’m glad it’s over.
My happiest memories of high school were the times I spent volunteering for community service with ROTC and the clubs I was part of. I have some fond memories of a few classes and my friends. At this time of my Senior year, I spent most of my time looking forward to summer which is not something I usually do. Even though I actually liked High School, I rarely think about it any more.
Don’t waste your last 3 months though. You can still form some happy memories between now and graduation.
One happy note on exams though, I don’t know how it works in your district but I didn’t have to take my exams. My Senior year grades got me on the honor roll for the first time in my life. Not taking the exams wouldn’t have made enough of a dent in my grades for it to matter. Also, by the time exams roll around, you should already have your acceptance letters and your grade point average so they won’t change. Check with your school office. If it’s not mandatory for graduation and your grades can handle the missing points, there’s no point stressing over it. My last month was so much happier than most of the kids because I didn’t spend all my time studying.
I agree with your summary. Graduation is a waste of time but it is easy. Prom is difficult and generally forgettable for most people.
You actually have the right idea about moving far from your friends - AIM. With all this newfangled technology it is easy to keep in touch with friends. My best friend from high school (one of only two from high school I still keep in contact with) moved to Japan after college. Very little contact for years. By chance we ended up back in the same city, renewed friendship. We then both moved across country from each other. But daily e-mail banter (yes, during work. I am a bad bad man.) keeps us in constant contact. In fact, e-mail works better than instant messaging. You can copy more friends, introduce college friends to high school friends, and are not resticted to being online at the same time.
High school sucks. College swings wildly between awesome and sucky. The real world is MUCH better than you might think.
[ol]
[li]No future employer will care how well you did in HS. Ever.[/li][li]Your SAT scores are more important than grades to college admissions people.[/li][li]There is no such thing as a “permanent record”.[/li][li]Your teachers have probaly indictated that “peole in the Real World, after you graduate, won’t put up with your crap!” Lie. There is no “Real World”, not the kind your teachers talk about. Only Outside. As in “Outside of HS walls”. The people of Outside are more forgiving than your jerkwad teachers, not less.[/li][/ol]
Don’t listen to the FoC. You’ll forget about them about 3 months after you leave. You have to realize that you’ll make friends anywhere if you are friendly enough and if you want to. England or Whales sounds great to me and I wish that I had had that chance. But then again it all depends on how adventurous you are and how much you want to see of the world. Myself? I couldn’t get enough of seeing different parts of the world. If you honestly want to get as far away as possible try to go to England! Never be afraid to take chances because if it gets bad you can always come back. And this Richmond University. I am a little jealous because I never knew that this University existed when I was applying for college. I certainly regretted going to where most of my FoCs and my TFs went to college because I didn’t really feel challenged where i went. Plus you know that Flights between London and New York are probably the cheapest trans-atlantic flights you can get, so you won’t be so far from home. Sometimes I have seen flights for around $300.
Well, I seriously wish you the best of luck in life, and if you make it to England I hope you get the best of it. I wish that I could have studied 4 years in Europe. :mad:
And I’m sure that your parents do care about you. I remember when I was your age, I was really trying to assert myself. But now I see them once every 3 months, and I gasp actually look forward to it! If you move to England you’ll have a whole new sense of self-respect for having made it on your own, and your parents will respect you then as well too.
Well, I for one certainly want to be updated on what happens, because I hope everything turns out well for you.
NinjaChick: I’m with you. I have my own high school graduation in about two months and except for a few people and a couple teachers, I’ll be glad to say goodbye. Senior year has been insane, what with college and scholarship applications in addition to classes, but really all four years have been pretty poor.
Regarding college - don’t let anyone influence you into going where you don’t want to go. I know it sounds trite, but this is your choice. After being confined in high school for so long, you finally get the chance to DO SOMETHING ELSE. I personally am considering a college clear across the country, in California (I live in Mississippi, the Land of True Opportunity), which I think surprises a lot of people because they don’t see me as the kind of person to live thousands of miles from home for months at a time.
I know some very competent people who are choosing to go to state colleges (MISSISSIPPI state colleges, mind) simply because that’s where their friends are going. Does this strike anyone else as asinine? I have nothing against state colleges - but letting other people choose your college for you is simply…dumb.
Merkwurdigliebe, my stepson graduated from St. John’s, Maryland and loved it.
Ninjachick, learn to trust your own instincts. Give them consideration and careful thought, then go with what you think best.
Spend some time thinking about and writing down all of the things that you would like to do in your life – places you want to see, books you want to read, things you want to learn how to do, traits you want to develop, things you wish to own. Keep that list easily accessible to you for the next 100 years or so. You may delete or add to as you see fit, but *start to do and be and have these things in your life now – not later. Always have a plan in progress.
Just by coincidence, I was thinking about one of the things on one of my old lists today. I’m 60 now. Fifteen years ago I made a list of the most frivolous things that I wanted. I mentioned somewhere – it may have been at SDMB – that I had just about everything on the list but the Mont Blanc pen. Actually, I’m planning on marking another biggie off my list in April with a trip to Paris.
Today, while I was looking at a map of Paris, I noticed that the Mont Blanc store is right at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe. Who am I to challenge fate?
Anyway, for what it’s worth, each decade has been better than the last for me.
You’ve noticed it too!! Isn’t it amazing how the most mean-spirited and demanding people in this world seem drawn to working with young minds where they can impose their outrageous standards. No one on the “Outside” is ever going to fire you for being late or taking sick leave or being honest about what you think. It just doesn’t happen.
I’ve never understood why we have to work with the jerkwads when we’re young and the nice guys when we grow up.
When you leave the school on graduation night, LEAVE. Let go of all the bullshit. Forget 99% of the people in your class because they will be irrelevant to the rest of your life.
The months after you graduate are one of the few chances you will ever have in life to start all over again. Nobody cares in college if you were prom queen. You pretty much start on equal footing with everyone else, it’s awesome. Be yourself and have fun!
And if you have a boyfriend, break up now because the first year of college is too much fun and holds too much potential to be tied down with anyone. Date, date, date!
Bosa pretty much summed up what I was going to say. (Good to see that it wasn’t cancer, Bosa…)
That being said, my daughter, who has always been ethereal, is a junior in high school. Her senior year she has only one class to take and will be graduating in January 2005. She will ‘walk’ with her classmates when they graduate later that year in May.
I ache for my daughter. She sees HS for the sham it is. She’s very much a freethinker and sees how her classmates are conditioned into NOT thinking outside the box, NOT questioning authority and NOT making any sort of waves whatsoever. HS life for her is bleak; full of tedium and frustration…and I really feel sorry for her. Mrs. Eggerhaus and I have always encouraged her to think for herself and be her own person. We trust her implicitly and that alone, I think, has made her a stronger, independent young woman…much so than most of her peers who have bought the big lie.
She wants to get into design…but doesn’t really want to go to university right away. We’ve encouraged her to travel…outside the US. Hell, most 18 year olds haven’t got a clue what they really want to do anyway…
Enjoy life, Ninja Chick for the blessing it is. As we’ve told our ethereal girl, don’t let the bastards get you down!
