The Power of a Falcon
It’s been exactly a week since I graduated high school. (Well, okay, I’m publishing this a day late but nearly exactly one week). A week since one of the largest chapters of my life thus far has come to a close. When I was a freshman, the idea of graduating high school was a distant idea. Not because I didn’t think it would come, but because I could barely remember to make my bed, so how could college possibly be real? But here I am, 8 days out of high school and 81 days until college; eighty-one days to reflect on the past four years (though I doubt every day will actually be spent doing that). I’m going to be honest: I learned a lot in high school, though almost none of it from a textbook.
The first lesson: learn from your mistakes.
At the risk of sounding like a downer, most of freshman year was a mistake. Were there some good outcomes? Sure! I met someone who’s now a good friend, I developed my love for writing, and I *slightly* improved upon my ever-lacking social skills. But it was also littered with mistakes, the biggest being grades. At the risk of sounding like an utterly stereotypical country bumpkin, I had little to no understanding of what grades were. I knew I got grades on assignments, and that I had an overall grade in classes, and I knew an A was better than a C and a C better than an F, but I had no idea what the implications of these grades were. On top of that, I had absolutely no idea how to study. I made oh so many mistakes in terms of schoolwork freshman year, and it continued into sophomore year, when I foolishly took Honors Chemistry. But I guess this class was what finally slapped me in the face hard enough for me to realize that I was not doing well. Like, at all. So I learned. And I switched into regular Chemistry. And my entire spring semester of sophomore year benefitted. So I guess what I’m saying is, no matter how long it takes or how many mistakes I made along the way, high school taught me to take everything life throws at me and learn from it, improve from it, and overall, become a better and smarter person.
Lesson number two: improvement is not a one-time action, but rather, an ongoing process.
If you were at my graduation, you’ll know that I’m stealing this from my own speech. But honestly, figuring this out was a huge step for me. When you work hard at something and see improvements, it’s easy to think that you’ve made it. But as pessimistic as it sounds, an A on one test doesn’t guarantee an A on the next. If you want to continue to do better than you did previously, you need to keep trying.
Lesson number three: school spirit isn’t lame.
Despite the pretty terrible track record of our football team, Saratoga High School has spirit, and despite what I initially thought as the skeptical, critical, and recovering-emo 15-year-old I was, taking part in said spirit is one of the best things you can do in high school. Listen, if loud noises, big crowds, or anything like that isn’t your deal, that’s fair. But I’m talking to all of you who actively choose not to support your school or your peers, because it doesn’t seem “interesting” to you. I was like you. I had friends who were like you. In fact, I still know people who are like you. But honestly, looking back, not for one minute do I regret choosing to get excited for a rally, or coming to school early to get face paint for a lip dub, or supporting my friends at sports games or drama productions. Those moments positively influenced my overall high school experience; I gained friends, supported friends, and felt that sense of community that everyone always wants, all from the seats of these events. I’m not saying that you need to go out there and volunteer for the shaving cream wrestling match at a rally (to my non-Saratoga readers, I’m not even going to try to explain that one), but school spirit comes in many forms, and I’d highly encourage you to take it in whatever best fits you. Looking back on high school, I’m so glad I did what I did, because I’ll now forever have those good memories attached to these last four years.
Lesson number four: if there isn’t a community that you feel completely encapsulates you, you should make it yourself.
This was another tough one. Middle school was much more...segregated than high school, in that you had your friend group and stuck to that friend group. In high school, there’s just so much opportunity to do so many different things, and suddenly you (or at least I did) find yourself in completely different circles. For me, I was always torn between my choir friends and my MAP friends. Stealing from my own speech again, while I felt comfortable in both these groups, I didn’t feel whole in just one of them. Learning that the boundaries of my friend groups were more fluid than I thought changed my last two years at SHS. I remember sophomore year, I didn’t think I’d be able to ever invite my different friends to my birthday party, because what if they didn’t get along? After all, they didn’t know each other at all. But come senior year, I invited these different friends to my birthday party, then my family Diwali party, then recently, my grad party. And I realized, that not only did my friends get along with each other and actually in some cases become friends, none of the barriers from before actually mattered. Because sure, my groups were divided by interests, but everyone I chose to surround myself with shared similar characteristics of being caring, funny, genuine, and kind. And at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if I like superheroes and you like dancing. If we get along, we get along.
Lesson number five: togather, anything is possible.
Writing my graduation speech a month ago and listening to the others last week made me realize something: the falcon family of 2019 is much stronger than I could have ever imagined. Not only have we constantly shown up for each other as students, peers, and friends, we’ve shown up for our community and those beyond. We constantly check in on each other and stand up for and with each other. We genuinely care. And honestly, that might be the biggest surprise of high school. I came into freshman year straight out of three terrible years in middle school. I was thrown into this new school, with the same kids from middle school, dreading that the next four years would be just like the last three. But I guess something happened over the summer, or maybe I started hanging out with different people (shoutout to my MAP family), but suddenly I was surrounded by people who were so incredible, in every aspect of the word. I remember at the beginning of junior year, when P-Rob sent out that first email and they hung up that banner in the quad, both sporting the phrase, “‘TOGAther,’ anything is possible,” we all laughed at the made up word, and generally brushed it off. But the past four (and especially the past two) years have shown me that this phrase rings true. I’ve been so lucky to be surrounded by such an amazing group of friends for the past four years, and I can only hope that we’ll stay in touch and continue to build similar connections in the future.
Toga, you’ve been better to me than I ever thought you would, better than I ever thought I could get. These five lessons, by far, are not the only five I learned (and despite what I said before, I did actually learn some things from textbooks), but overall, I couldn’t have asked for a better high school experience. ⬥