Highschool Reflection

After these four years, high school is definitely an experience that I will never forget. Whether those reasons are positive or negative, they are the reasons for the person I am today, and the foundation for the person I want to become tomorrow. I am not the same person I was when I walked into the school, and I couldn’t be gladder that I chose to come to this school. I was stuck in this bubble that I made for myself before high school, and I only had a few people I would let into my life; otherwise, I would shut them out. I did have goals that I wanted to accomplish throughout my high school career: learn about computer science, expand my relationships, pop my bubble, and molt out of my past self, for I didn’t find a lot of excitement in life. Throughout the year, a lot changed. I had gained more relationships, deepened some, and joined computer science as my first choice, and started to just be happier overall. I really enjoyed the shop, and thought of it as another home where I can be myself and have fun learning about something so abstract and interesting. Over that summer, some of those relationships came crashing down even faster than they started, and I tried to just move past it. Over my second year of high school, it came back to haunt me. I managed to piece everything together, but it just ended up falling apart in my face again as I got careless. In my defense, my sophomore year had a lot of hardships. Classes were exponentially harder. My first AP class hit me like a truck in the face, and English was getting more difficult to follow. History was kind of the middle zone, while math was a little bit harder because there was a lot of memorization with geometry. Take this and add it upon wanting to fix broken houses with glue, I only had one escape: the shop. I sat in the back of the class and put on music. I would put all my struggles and hardships into my code and let it reflect how I felt. I completed harder and harder projects to try to make myself feel something else. Luckily, I had a great environment as well. Mrs. Soucy, the freshman-sophomore teacher, was great. Always kind and understanding of everything. She taught us with passion and set the foundation for my computer science understanding. My classmates, as well, were really nice, and we all got along. Music, too, was a whole new world that opened up to me. Before, I would “listen” to music, but never really get the idea of emotional connection. That was until my dad brought me to two concerts: Avenged Sevenfold and Bullet for My Valentine. The struggle of sophomore year bled into these bands, and the words spoke to me. Like I was the one behind the microphone, pleading for my words to be heard by anyone. It wasn’t that dramatic, but music is now a really big part of my life, and without it, I would be a completely different person. I am thankful of sophomore year for that. It broke me down, but the only way to molt, like I wanted to, is to get rid of the past to make a greater future for myself. Junior year was really close to being a repeat of sophomore year in the beginning. But due to new friendships from last year, and music, I was able to focus on my friends instead of the past. I made some really great friends and got closer to a bunch of people. The shop was a whole new experience for me. We had a new teacher this year, Mr. Riley. He is very passionate about three things. Computer science, The Lord of the Rings, and jokes. I have never seen The Lord of the Rings, but it was really funny that he had a nerdy interest that he was obsessed with. It felt like an open environment to be who you are. Jokes are obviously the best thing ever, and I am always joking around with people. This year, we also learnt a lot of new ideas and concepts that completely changed the way I look at computer science. From polymorphism to database management, and even class structure. Coding went from writing methods to staying organized and professional because most of the time our code will be used by someone else who has to understand our thinking. We also went into game design for the first time in Unity. It was not what I had expected. There are so many different little things that matter, and you can edit and or use to create dynamic worlds of your imagination. It was really fun, and I keep telling myself I am going to make my own project, but I can never be consistent with it, unfortunately. I felt like I was actually moving on and fitting in this year. I even joined the Engineering club and helped out on a project for NASA. It was really fun working on it with my friends, and making a project that was actually going to do something, and not just a poster for a class that is thrown away after a grade. It was like Sophomore year’s growth actually mattered, and I could feel that in how I shaped myself this year. This year was definitely about proving myself and what I could do. Freshman year was the introduction, sophomore year was the harsh reality setback, and junior year was the great return. The only thing left now is the future after my final year. Things in my senior year started kinda iffy. I was really excited to get back to school, but a lot of relationships were rocky. I was obsessed with the idea of bettering myself, however. I started to be more active and look at life with a positive outlook. The active part didn’t last too long, but I really miss and I want to get back into that. This final year also altered what I wanted to do with my future. I knew I always wanted to do computer science and game design because of how I met my friends online, and I wanted to connect others like that as well. But I think I mixed my hobby with what I wanted to do. Which is great, but I have other interests as well. Like quantum physics, which is the most bizarre and exciting thing right now. Now one truly knows how it works, and I want to be a part of it. The boundaries of human understanding are a scary but amazing world that I hope one day to be on a team that pushes human understanding past its borders to unlock a new world to better the world. To do that, I need to double major in college, unfortunately, and need to pick a place of focus, which I still have no idea about. Overall, I think high school was just the introduction to who I am and life ahead. I am happier and see the beauty in life, but I still feel held down and stuck. I think once I get into college and grow wings, I will be able to touch the sun. All my teachers have really made their own impact on my life somehow. My middle school teachers are just there in my memory, but high school teachers I can remember each of what they’ve done and who they were. Maybe it was my maturity back then, but the idea of teachers being people too wasn’t really something I thought about. Little things like that have changed in my mind and overall changed my life. Small impacts over time that eventually changed the whole. I will reiterate that these four years were not without loss. People, pets, loved ones, relationships, ideals, and wants, gone. But, “a thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts.” Vision said that right before killing Ultron, and I really like that quote. It’s a reminder that loss isn’t the removal and destruction of love; it’s a reminder and blessing that in order to feel pain, you first had to have felt love, and that’s what high school was for me. Trying to navigate through the pain of finding myself as a person, and looking back on everything I have lost, and thankful for who I was before, because he’s the reason for who I am today.