High School

Training kids and now currently working at a prep school I interact with teens on a daily basis. I love hearing about high school now compared to when I was a teenager. Now instead of me using the pay phone to call mom to pick me up, kids these days just whip out the cell and call their parents. The computer in my day was i believe an apple we played the game Carmen San Diego on, kids nowadays have laptops available for them to use, and I’d say far better games than chasing old Carmen around the world.

This blog isn’t about what we had compared to what they have, it’s about the four years that repeat themselves for the rest of your life, if you let them of course. Once you start high school you’ve embarked on a never ending journey similar to the one Bill Murray did in the movie Groundhogs Day.(if you’ve never seen this movie he relives the same day over and over again, also feel free to slap yourself now that movies a classic)

They say some people never get over high school, the “jock” still reminisces about scoring the game winning touchdown, the “cheerleader” still puts on make up to go get the mail etc etc. I think part of that reason is because the laws of high school follow us throughout our lives.

When you start high school you’re socially at the bottom of the totem pole. You’re a freshman, you have zits that people make names for and for the guys you’re voice is cracking more than a box of rice crispies. You have to earn your respect and pray you make it until June, then you become a sophomore which is another step up but still nothing of significant importance. I don’t even think the teachers know your name until your junior year, unless you’re in the principals office a lot (they knew my name pretty early in my career, partly because I talked a little to much and mostly because my older brother that net there before me liked talking even more than I did/thanks Romont)

By your senior year you’re so ready to get out of the prison your parents call high school you develop a disease coined by teachers as senioritis. It makes the brain sluggish at times, you forget days you have school, and sometimes you can be found looking out of a classroom window for hours at a time. Fast forward to prom and then graduation. You know what you’re present is for graduating? You get to be a freshman again in another 3months.

Granted in college it’s a little different, unless you play a sport you won’t experience the hazing rituals that you might of in high school. But you’re still the low man on the totem pole again.

After college you have your brand new degree and you’re ready to take on the world. Some get a job right away and find out the term “freshman” is replaced with “entry level” and it’s back to earning the respect of your elders and finding your niche. The “cool kids” now hang out at the water cooler instead of the “bucket” (at Morris Hills that’s where everyone smoked) and people gossip and know everyones business just like that time in high school you hung out with that girl/boy that was already taken.

If you survived high school most likely you ll survive life, but what good is that? You survive shark attacks (sometimes) you live life. High school might be a never ending cycle for some but not for those who’d rather live in the future, or who never paid much attention in the first place.