Although I loved being home-schooled, when freshman year came, it was goodbye home-schooling and hello high school.
The first day of school was a blur. A stressful, surreal blur. I mean, I was going to a school that has a section of the building literally called, “The Pit.”
I went looking for my homeroom, room 111 on the first floor, in that hallway with all the doors that look like they haven’t been opened since Ms. Ortwein started teaching at AHS. Well, apparently room 111 doesn’t exist…I had looked at the wrong number.
I went to the wrong lunch, and when I sat down, I took out an apple. And a knife to cut the apple … it wasn’t a butter knife. I was really confused when everyone around me left.
Then I was reminded, uh, you’re not allowed to bring a knife into a public school.
Since everything I knew about public school came from movies I’d seen, I was pretty sure the cafeteria would be like the one in High School musical and everyone would start singing “Stick to the Status Quo,” and I thought detention would be where all the cool kids get to hang out and dance, like in Hairspray. I guess you could say I had plenty of misguided ideas about public high school, and, to be honest, high school was nothing like I imagined, but making the choice to join the AHS community was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
As I look back over the past four years, I have so many wonderful memories, many of which come from my involvement in the performing arts department. As I was reflecting on each of the different roles I played in the shows at AHS, it struck me that each character’s personality reminds me of a different aspect of this community that I’ve grown to love.
In the musical, “The Pajama Game,” I played Mabel, a secretary in the 1950s who sees each person’s full potential, and tries to help them reach it. At AHS, I saw this in the adults that interacted with us every day, from the custodians to the teachers to the administration.
Whether it was our principals Mr. Skidmore or Ms. Villano, who always looked out for our best interests, or our vice principal, Mr. McCarthy, who danced to gangnam style with us in the middle of the cafeteria on Halloween, our administration has been led by a team of caring individuals. And our deans, when they weren’t busy maintaining order and discipline, found time to conspire with students’ mothers to give prank detentions to undeserving high schoolers. I forgive you.
Most of all, I saw Mabel’s qualities of compassion and insight in our teachers, who not only educated our minds but also tried to understand who we truly were and who we had the ability to become. Whether it was the passion of the language teachers or the welcoming aura of the Little Theater, whether it was finding a chance to express your emotions and creativity through a lump of clay in an art room, stumbling over Shakespeare in front of an English teacher, learning how to swing dance in a…math class, or experiencing the unique opportunity of receiving gym credit for being stuck out in the woods for four days in the middle of winter by yourself with five matches and piece of plastic, we have been blessed with teachers who have guided, encouraged and challenged us.
Although the Mabel’s of AHS have contributed so much to our lives, we would not be who we are today without our own hard work and perseverance. One of my favorite characters that I’ve played comes from the musical Grease, and her energy and enthusiasm is…overwhelming. Patty Simcox, head cheerleader and honor roll student, is full of positivity, determination, and competition, and she gives 110 percent to what she believes in.
The Arlington High School Class of 2013 embodies all of these characteristics, and the common memories we share will bind us together no matter how far apart our wanderings may bring us.
Our class’s spirit of competition was overwhelmingly evident, whether we were competing on a sport’s team, screaming our heads off in Battle of the Bands, auditioning for a select music group, trying to get a better grade on a math test than Larsen, staking someone’s house at 5 am in senior assassination, or fighting to have the last comment in Class of 2013 Facebook post.
But despite our fierce competition, we also had our moments of unity–staying up all night at Relay for Life to raise money for cancer research, joining together as one group at sports and music events to cheer on our classmates, trying to take down the junior girls in the Powder Puff game, coming in to school wearing ridiculous costumes for Halloween, or breaking it down on the dance floor at Prom.
Our memories reflect where we’ve been, the people we have surrounded ourselves with, and the years we leave behind on this field today. Throughout our years here, our thoughts, decisions, and actions have been shaped and molded by those around us. As we move on to our new lives, however, we will each be faced with the choice of how we will view and treat the people we meet every day.
When I played the role of Miss Maudie Atkinson in the play “To Kill a Mockingbird,” I was challenged and convicted by the way both she and Atticus Finch chose to live their lives. Atticus tells his daughter: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
It’s so easy to make quick judgments, believe in false stereotypes, and forget that every person’s past is a rich and complex history of struggles and successes. The people I have met at AHS are so radically different, and yet we all have insecurities, secret things we laugh and cry over, and parts of us that no one else knows about. We have all spent our lives seeking genuine friendship, unconditional love, and a place in this world.
As we go our separate ways, it is my hope that you see beyond the faces of the people you meet to who is really there, and that in this you learn to see the world from “someone else’s skin;” that you learn to appreciate the complexities of our unique worldviews, to grow from differing of opinions, and to treat others with the graciousness and openness that your own heart longs for.
Thank you, and may God bless you as you journey into the future.
