The first day of senior year, how did that happen? Where did the time go, and what am I supposed to do in 200 and some odd days after I walk across the stage in my green cap and gown and my life here in Forest Hills is abruptly over?

It’s 5:30 a.m., and my first alarm of the six I preset starts to blare with the dreadful sound of ‘radar’… the only alarm sound that is annoying enough to wake me up. After a sleepless night, I was happy that my alarm was going off because it meant that it was okay to start getting ready for the last first day, instead of at 3:30 when my mind first decided it was going to wake up.

Senior year, here I come. The whole time I was getting ready that morning, I wasn’t stressed about what I was going to wear or what I was going to look like. There was a different atmosphere that I had created for myself then in years past. Normally, I would be full of stress in my basement bathroom trying to get dressed in time to make the bus, or last year, when I had zero hour, waking up before the class was scheduled to start. This year was different. This year, it wasn’t going to be a stress filled day; it was more relaxed and less “go go go.”

As for when I got to school, the parking lot was very familiar as it was packed with cars and new sophomore and junior drivers that had gotten their license over the summer. Making my way into school, I strategically planned to park near the freshman hallway so that I could walk through it, carefully scoping out the new “fresh meat.” They look like a good group of underclassman and of course I shouldn’t judge by how they look, but even from the freshmen I know they tell me they are a respectable class. It was weird walking through the white freshman hallway and then turning left into the senior hallway… the SENIOR hallway. And making my way to my locker, I looked at all my peers at their lockers for the first last time, I knew that I was ready for the first day of my last year of high school.
The first day is always a long one. Having to sit through each hour class period with teachers just talking at you about their expectations and what exactly the class entails for the semester. But as the day came to an end, I was happy to know that one of my friends and I have the first five hours together, and have yoga first hour. Also, I have lunch with almost all of my friends and of course, I have the best sixth hour in the whole school. The next two hundred and some odd days of waking up at 5:30 are going to be so worth it because the atmosphere of senior year is already setting in. I have already made friends with people I would have never expected to be friends with and I am excited just to see what our class is going to do and see how far we’ve come when we’re all walking across the stage in May.