My Experience In High School

I recall the beginning of my freshman year when I was thrown into the chaotic and hectic mess that is high school. Not only was I given a much harder course load than ever before, but I also started the year off with volleyball. This made my life so incredibly difficult. As if getting home from a game at 10 o’clock was not enough, I typically still had about an hour of homework to complete due to my honors classes. That season felt longer than a giraffes neck . From the long nights of homework, to the complete mental breakdowns, Freshman year was one of the worst experiences of my life.

I walk into a new place where I have never been before trying to find where i’m going next. I struggle to look for my friends in a commons area full of people. It doesn't help that my eyesight is very poor. I start walking straight into the commons in hopes to find someone. I finally find a group full of familiar people who had graduated two years ago from the school I went to. I go up to them and ask them where my classes are, if i have good teachers, and if anybody has the same classes that i do. Unfortunately none of them did but as i spot my better friends i say goodbye and head away from them. I walk up to my best friends alec and tyler they tell me “Gracie there's nothing to worry about, its college!” I figure that they are right but that doesn’t change the fact that it was only my first day and i had no idea who anybody was here. I was scared, i knew it was going to be way harder than high school. Both alec and tyler say they have the first class with me and it was 15 minutes to but they joked with me and said that it's almost mandatory to show up at least 5 minutes late to a college class. So of course it also made me nervous that they were going to be late to class. I had thought about all the times i got threatened for my attendance at the high school and how the teachers would make you go to ISS for the whole hour if you were even a minute late. I had millions of thoughts running through my head, who am i going to sit by? What if the teacher yells that we are

It was freshman year in high school, and I was ecstatic about the fact that I can officially refer to myself as a high school student. However, not everything was perfect, nor filled with sunshine and rainbows. It was just two weeks into the school year when I faced my first arduous obstacle.

I would like to pretend that the bridge between elementary school and high school did not exist for me—that junior high just did not happen. I was a seemingly thoughtless kid, determined to make it out of school entirely and live in my own world where nobody could tell me what to do. I was awkward, irrational, and rebellious, three qualities I cannot thank my parents enough for dealing with. But the experiences and people I encountered in my junior high years almost made that whole chapter of my life worth reliving. I went through a lot in junior high, and have many memories of ridiculous instances that make it easy to make fun of myself.

Before graduating elementary and jumping into middle school my homeroom adviser always advises us to try and enter the school program in this particular high school. The thing is to enter the program you need to take an entrance exam and get at least 85% on it. The first week of May 2012 my mom and I went to my elementary school to collect my transcripts that I needed to enroll for grade 7. At that moment and for the last time I saw my grade 6 teachers. Upon getting my transcripts I can hear my grade six teachers asking my mom if I will take the entrance exam.

When I was fourteen years old, I realized that I was very different from my twin sister Annsley. When Annsley and I were in the eighth grade there was a form that we received to encourage students to join the band. I had no desire to join the band, I wanted to play soccer while Annsley on the contrary, could not wait to sign up. She even had a countdown for the first football game because she could not wait to march with her now, new band friends.

“Sorry, I can’t. I have homework.” That was the constant excuse I used in high school when my friends asked if I wanted to hang out. Junior year of high school was a rough year for me--not only was I taking six AP classes in one year, but I was also in the marching band which dominated a lot of my time. I was so invested in all of these that I forgot how to even socialize. I would negate a lot of my friends and family who wanted to gather and just spend some time with me. Now, don’t get me wrong, this does not mean that I was a loser by any means, I loved to “hang” and party and all the typical teenager tropes. It was just that year. That one year that I screwed myself over with a crap ton of demanding classes. That one year I wish I could do all over again. That one year that would have been enormously simpler had I been amicable enough to accept other people into my life. Which leads to the situation that most strongly defines what my dilemma during my junior year: I should have gone to the movies instead.

Another day in this school. Maybe if I keep my head down the entire class the time will go by faster. The most valuable part of my day was when the last bell rang. School was a cycle that felt eternal. My greatest passion and aspiration is Basketball. My life had no other purpose, sophomore year of high school and already I was scouted by two universities. I was bound to at least after college play overseas, so I didn’t think of a career. Before I get ahead of myself it was inevitable that I had to graduate high school first. At one moment of a person’s life, we stumble across something that will change our lives forever. During my early years of high school, I had no passion for academics. I was introduced to a book by my favorite teacher, and my mind experienced a shift, I was able to see myself beyond a basketball court. My Coach Carla would always tell me “you’re a student-athlete, the student comes first”. However, whenever I fell behind in my studies my teachers would always give me extensions on assignments because I was a part of the Lady Cardinals. If it wasn’t for my athlete title, I wouldn’t have the grades to make the team.

When I first enrolled high school, I was following the current I didn’t have a plan for college or understand what I was going to do with my life. I had a challenging background when it came to academics; my scores were always “alright” but were never enough for Advance Placement courses. Constantly schoolteachers belittled me believing I wasn’t meant for learning. After hearing this I wanted to create a structured path that I could be proud of. I thought I wasn’t going anywhere in life until I challenged myself academically for a better future.

“Hey, move out of my seat!” she snarled at me. “Of course princess.” I fakely replied back. But I still moved. There’s nothing else I could’ve done. I would’ve had to face another day of insults and curses hurled at me by her and her entourage’s petty mouths. It’s not like she usually sat there, it’s just because I just happened to sit in a place where all of her little minions would fit as well.

I remembered the first day I started high school, I was so nervous. As a kid I always remember I would have an anxiety problem for almost every little thing. I wake every morning feeling nauseated even though there was nothing to worry about because I mean after all it was just school. Honestly I guess I felt like that because I care so much about what other people would think or say about me. I remembered thinking damn, I just got out of middle school here goes another 4 long year of school. It was just extremely frustrating but what I didn’t know was that those years would go by so fast. After all, like everyone says, a lot happens in 4years. On my first day everything was going fine. I had made new friends, so far I liked all my teachers, and I got into this Culinary Arts class that I didn’t even know I was going to liked, I learned so much in Culinary. Everyday I would go in excited to see what I would learn the next day. I even started helping my mom cook, I learned so much in a gnomish time that’s when I discovered I had a passion for learning how to cook. I can honestly say I’m so glad I got into that class because now I know how to cook a little bit of Italian thanks to my godfather who is an excellent chef in New York City. I learn a lot from my mother who I’m forever thankful I just don’t tell her as much. Thanks to her I learn how to cook almost all kinds of Mexican food, I learn how to be a little more responsible, I getting into finishing my Diploma.

In the middle my 8th grade school year, I had to move and transfer schools. I was not at all pleased with this move because the new area that we lived in was completely different from what I was used to in my old neighborhood. Being at this new school, I spoke to a few people but I mostly just kept to myself. Until I met a girl named Morgan. We had to work together for a group math project. Once the project was over we still remain friends because our personalities were so similiar. She got me out of my comfort zone, showed me the ropes around the school, and even introduced me to a lot people that I eventually became friends with own my terms. Our conversations at school soon expanded to talking 24/7 at home. Later we realized that we lived about 5 minutes from each other and that made our friendship grow even more closer. By the time the school year came to an end we had become full blown bestfriends.

I am a gamer, a powerlifter, an inventor, a designer, a student. I enjoy my life currently, everything is very mellow and chilled. My life is moving at a phenomenal pace and soon I will be out of high school and into my college career. That is four years away though, my high school graduation and college level scholastic experience that is. That all will start with a <4 GPA that I intend to keep up with and graduate with.

Starting in my eleventh-grade year of high school I never knew all the changes I would go through. I attended Chickasaw High School in Chickasaw, AL. It was a little school, which had about five hundred students in total. I did not live in Chickasaw like all the other kids. I lived about twenty minutes away in Mobile, AL with my dad and stepmom. I went to this school because my stepmom (LaRae) was a teacher there. Also, I was like most girls in high school, I had a high school sweetheart named Michael Matthews. I thought my eleventh-grade year of high school was going to be a great and memorable experience until I found out some horrible news.

Until the summer of my sophomore year, I was unquestionably shy. I was the kid whose raised hand lifted four inches off the table and who slouched over her sketches of strangers. That summer, I was forced to change.