I have senioritis; honestly, I think I’ve had it for four years. When I was in eighth grade, waiting for middle school to end, I was concerned about time moving too fast. I fear that I never really moved past that. I remember telling my sister about how scared I was about the future, she told me I’d figure it out in time, that high school will feel like it takes forever, but I came to a different conclusion. I don’t think that high school lasted forever.
High school was a speeding train, it crashed into me and left just as fast as it got there. But within all the ruins and damage that was my high school career, nothing made a bigger impact than that which changed everyone’s lives, COVID-19. I came back from the pandemic and from the dramatic events of life differently. I wanted to be different, I wanted to take a stand against all the things that I thought I was.
I came back junior year wanting a new start, but time passes, and it passes faster than anyone can admit to be prepared for. I was swept through junior year, I can barely remember any of the details. In the summer I believed that maybe senior year would be different, that I would be allowed to live some juvenile daydream I believed I deserved. But it was all the same to me.
If highschool is a train then senior year is the derailment, crash, and explosion all at the same time. A brutal nine months of life that happens in a flash and leaves you wishing you at least had the time to be able to enjoy some pauses in between all of the destruction. But even when life feels like it has derailed and exploded and crashed all the same, I still feel a little somber at the end of this part of the line.
There’s more than a few reasons for me to be sad that this stage in my life is almost gone, and I should probably thank those that actually made me want to go to school. It’s only right to go chronologically, so firstly I’d like to say thank you to Ms. Boyd, my fourth grade teacher, who taught me that it’s okay to be proud of the things you like and speak up about what you know. Ms. Carino, my eighth grade English teacher, who taught me that whenever I feel comfortable, I must continue to strive for the highest level. And finally Ms. Hands: I’ve never felt closer to a teacher than I have with Ms. Hands. Having been stuck with me for four years I can understand if she’s tired of the way I talk or act, and I assume that’s probably right, but she taught me that I can be prideful of who I am, and made me appreciate something which is so widely disrespected in the world today.
In freshman year, I was dropped a week into a school where I thought everyone already knew each other, and I was the odd one out. If I could say anything to the me who walked through the school doors that day, I would tell them to just shut up every once in a while, and to know everything will work out one way or another.
I have to go now, so goodbye, and don’t mess up this publication.
Hi, I'm Abraham Gallegos, this is my third year on staff. I am Managing Editor, and previously was the news editor. I'm so happy to be bringing you the news and opinions of our staff and of myself and I'm looking forward to senior year.
