A New Start -By Kaleigh West

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As my head hit the pillow on the night before the first day of school, adrenaline pumped throughout my body as I realized what was waiting for me on the other end of what was certainly going to be a restless night. What was I about to return to? The same bus, school, cafeteria, and homeroom were all waiting for me. Despite all of these similarities, I couldn't help but remember all of the things from freshman year that I was about to leave behind. Rather than trying to solve the murder of fictitious character Anna Garcia, this year I would build a manikin to show how all of the body systems work together in order to allow for my existence. Instead of learning about Napoleon and the French Revolution, I would learn about the colonization and development of the United States. I wouldn't do any labs where I had to balance chemical equations or use kinematics to predict where a marble would land. Labs would now be about cells, living organisms, and terrifying, yet intriguing, diseases. 

 As my entire freshman year flashed before my eyes, I thought about all of the memories I made. All of the times I spent hours on end reading and taking notes for my English quiz the next day, and all of the hand cramps I got from taking those quizzes. All of the times I tried (and failed) to light a Bunsen burner and subsequently struggled to properly adjust the flame for a chemistry lab. All of the times we sang "Joyeux Anniversaire" (French for "Happy Birthday") to my classmates in French class. All of the times our entire physics class spent half of the period trying to figure out why gravity exists. Perhaps most importantly, I remembered all of the friends that I made. It was at that moment that I realized that through the ups, the downs, the successes, and the failures of freshman year, I learned so much. Not just about academics, but about people, life, and most of all, myself. Going into last year, I was generally shy, closed off, and took things way too seriously. By the end, I was a changed person with newfound confidence and the ability to find a balance between work and fun. With that thought, I realized that if this was what one year of high school could do, I am more than ready to see what the next three years have in store.  

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 8, 2019 at 5:32 PM

    I can definitely relate! I remember singing "Joyeux Anniversaire" and it was always awkward because we learned it a certain way with our teacher in eighth grade, and our "new" teacher sang it differently (...and it stayed like that the entire year). I also remember when in physics, the best application someone could come up for a worksheet was with was two physics students staring at a motionless box! This is really well written, and it was fun to read, especially because it provoked my own memories. Great job Kaleigh!

    ReplyDelete
  2. DanielleSeptember 9, 2019 at 6:27 AM

    I love to read that you have gained confidence and a balance between work and fun - that's so important! Time to make more memories!

    ReplyDelete

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