Being home schooled during the awkward year of ninth grade could definitely be considered a blessing. Although it was not my plan, I have learned to be above all, grateful for it. I miss out on the unique teasing, bullying and immature cliques that it seems only freshman must endure. After discussions and decisions with my parents, we have chosen to have me attend Sandy High School for the rest of my high school career.
        I am feeling just about every emotion as the school year starts out. Regardless of what the beginning of this article may have made it seem like, I am not entering into a foreign world of public school. I have, like I said, been home schooled, but I have also experienced both public and private school. Needless to say, they are very different from one another.
        I’m excited, anxious, and nervous for this school year. I already know most of the kids my age from middle school; however, if any of them have changed half as much as I have, then nobody is even remotely the same—not to mention that I’d be beyond naïve to think junior high school is anything like high school.
        Since leaving my public school peers, I have stayed very much involved with friends, and the drama we as young adults use for entertainment. I, too, have been the teenage girl who used silly romance to define herself, and was willing to drop a friend for a certain kind of status. When that is all that is around you, it takes a certain kind of strength that you don’t know you have to rise above it. In the process of changing from who I was to who I am, I have continued to hear secondhand of the ones who rise above it, but I have also continued to hear the stories of the ones who choose the other path; the superficial life that is expected from the typical American teen.
        Staying on the positive side, I am excited for the high school experiences I see in movies. I want to go to dances with friends, have fun at football games, and work hard every day for a grade that will make my parents proud. However, if hearing secondhand about the reality of teenagers in high school breaks my heart, I can only imagine what seeing it first hand is going to do to me. There’s that nervous feeling.
        There is something different when I step on my high school campus. It’s that odd feeling of having to decide to be yourself or to replace the real with you with a false exterior. Questions rattle in my head as I look onto the student body: Who will become homecoming queen? Who will get a 4.0? Who will score the winning touchdown? Who will be the victims of the rumors? Whoever you are, whatever you are apart of, I think it’s easy to say, we’re all changing—experiencing something new with every step we take through the extremely crowded halls and, above all, trying to find our purpose. It’s interesting to think that we’re making the memories we’ll always remember, and learning from every lesson whether we realize it or not.
        Whether you’re reading this as an adult, eager to compare and reminisce in your memories, or as a teen whom I pass in the halls, whether you’re cheering me on or taking every step with me, I can only assure you that I am just another lost girl in the midst of soul-searching youth. I will join them so willingly, with no expectations, and rely on my pen stokes as a refuge. The perfect wall of confidence that I would usually use as a shield is now impossible to put up. My opinions and thoughts are for the many to read and, as I wander the halls trying to unify yet not be conformed, I can only predict it’ll be an exciting journey.