Holy goodness.
I remember starting school in 1998, barely speaking a word of English (and somehow got in trouble for talking in class during kindergarten). I was thrown into the ESL class in kindergarten and first grade; I was publishing in English by tenth grade.
I remember fighting over markers in that communal supply box we all hated. I remember spending every wayking moment on the playground and the kickball field, making up games that spread like wildfire throughout the entire grade. I remember Wizard Week in fourth grade, at Robert Frost Elementary. It was the highlight of my elementary years (besides all the Chinese New Year performances). I remember recess.
I remember being dwarfed in Hammarskjold Middle School, feeling utterly lost as I tried to find my classes. I grew biceps during those two years of carrying books through the halls. With HMS came a feeling of supreme maturity, and for many of us there was. Those of us who were in the Verbal program underwent two hardcore years of Holocaust learning, read Shakespeare, To Killl a Mockingbird, George Orwell. We watched our teachers dance on the tables.
I remember writing my first novel, the exhilaration as the pages sped towards the finish and came to a close with the sexiest words known to man: The End.
Every year, while we are still living it, seems to drag on. We waited during Freshman year to leave Churchill Junior High so we could feel like "real" high schoolers. We waited to be finished with Sophomore year so we wouldn't be at the bottom at the High School. We painfully, and sleeplessly, waited for Junior year to be over so we could remarry our pillows and beds, refamiliarize ourselves with this alien concept known as sleep, get ready to enter the ultimate year of our schooling.
Then came Senior year. I literally felt pained in September as I thought of the long months of applications and essay writing (which, for me, was thankfully cut short), the cramming of work into first semester before senioritis hit, the wait for decisions, the overall wait for graduation. Senior year was the ultimate waiting game. There were weeks that felt like months by the way they dragged.
But we survived.
We all got into college. The AP IPLE team won regionals, states, third place at nationals. We lived through the final round of AP Exams. We walked through god-knows-how-many rounds of Pomp and Circumstance. I managed to not trip on three inch heels going up the stairs to receive the diploma. We graduated.
We hung just a little closer to our friends of over a decade, forged new ones with those we would know for the next four years. We reminisce, because that's what humans do when the end comes. We hug and cry and say goodbye. But in the end, we know that the show must go on. Thirteen whole years have come and gone, but the human mind is an amazing thing in its ability to absorb, rememeber, and recall. We will never forget those years, no matter how much we complained...
We are Class of 2011, the 50th Graduating Class of EBHS. The time is now ours.
