As summer vacation draws weeks and weeks closer, I can’t help but come to the same thought time and time again. Since I and my fellow sophomore classmates will be done with sophomore year, that means we are now ½ way done with high school.

I’ve been in the Oakmonitor for 1 year. I usually don’t write about these kinds of things. I wanted to write about something like this last year (end of my freshman year), but it was right before summer, and being a mild slacker, I forgot. So I’ll speak to how I feel about my freshman and sophomore years, and being ½ way done with high school.

It’s a weird truth. I think of it and feel nervous yet almost happy like a right of passage.

On the first day of freshman year, I came in thinking that high school would go on for what felt like forever. Now, as I see it, it feels like a day later and I’m nearing the end of my sophomore year, halfway through high school.

When I say it, it feels sad, it feels like high school is happening very fast. I won’t see many people I know after high school. I know that I still have 2 more years here, but it’s a strange reality to me that I’ve known people for years but it’s only a matter of time before I won’t see them again.

In addition, high school gets more serious in junior and senior years. Gone are the days of being a careless freshman.

Yet, it also feels humbling, and in a way, kind of cool. It feels exciting to be moving up in high school. I’m taking my classes more seriously, and I’ve been getting more involved with both the clubs I am in and new areas. I’ve met a lot of people, met great teachers, and made new friends. I’ve also got a job in that time too, a job that I enjoy.

In freshman year I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Ending the sophomore year, I have a better understanding of the path I want to take. I feel like I’m growing up, from a careless freshman to a soon-to-be junior, who is more aware.

Throughout all the bad moments and good times, I can say this: High school is quite the experience. Don’t take it for granted. I did that plenty in freshman year and sophomore year, and now I’m already ½ done. Enjoy it. Do clubs, and sports, or consider getting involved with a job. Because the high school will fly by for you, as it is doing for me, blink once, and you’ll already be ending sophomore year. Blink again, and it’ll be your senior year. 

So before I blink again, I think I’ll make sure I spend my high school time doing things I enjoy doing.