When I was asked to sit down and write this reflection the first thought that came to my mind was―what in the world do I write about and how is it already time for me to graduate? So, sitting at my computer for the first time all year, I stopped to think. I quite literally sat in the library and stared at my blank Google document for 40 minutes with a serious case of writer’s block. What really happened these four years of high school?

If I’m being honest, the vast majority of my days were spent doing the same mundane routine: sleep, school, clubs, sports, homework, repeat. The days would blur together and I found myself constantly thinking about and pushing towards what I was doing in the future. Little did I know that the mundane is really where the gold is. It’s those small things like seeing your friend in the hallway that lightens up your day or laughing with your teacher as they go off on a ten minute tangent or even the cafeteria cookies that never fail to make your day better. 

As a freshman, I walked into high school (well, metaphorically because my first day of freshman year was over Zoom) with zero clue of what my high school experience would look like. If you would have told my freshman year self that I would be Class President for three years I would have thought you were crazy and that there was no way I could have made a speech in front of my whole class. I now realize that the experiences I had in high school have taught me so many lessons and have shaped me into the person I am today, and I hope my freshman self would be proud of the person she became. 

In some last remarks, there are five lessons that will stick with me as I depart from high school that I would like to share to the incoming freshman: 

1. Just do it; if you’re scared, then do it scared 
2. Don’t forget to look back and see how far you’ve come 
3. It’s never that serious 
4. People are not paying attention to you as much as you think they are (don’t worry, no one is going to remember that your hair looked weird that day) 
5. Never hold back a compliment 

Peace out Algonquin, it’s been real.