Reflecting on Senior Year, the good, bad and ugly

Justin Dela Cruz
Columnist, The Friday Flyer

For some teenagers, it is their last year of high school: a time of joyful nostalgia and reflection upon numerous milestones and accomplishments. For others, they can move on and leave behind the ugly atrocities of the past. In either case, being a senior is a period of transition that grants new opportunities while moving past bittersweet recollections. This is how my experience as a senior has gone so far.

Oddly enough, my senior year started off with freshman orientation. To be specific, I was an orientation leader in what our school calls Link Crew. For the first week of school, all the freshman come together in the big gym while Link Leaders such as myself did our best to make them feel welcome to TCHS.

For a short portion of the orientation, I was assigned to have an activity session with a group of ten or eleven freshman. During this time, my main objective was to instill comfortability, positivity and zeal as they learned what it meant to be a Temescal Canyon Titan.

During that hour-and-forty-five-ish minutes, I bonded with my freshman. I learned who they were: their experiences coming into high school, their expectations, their fears, their hopes and dreams; everything that any freshman would likely think of as they matriculated from junior high. I had to give my group some credit, too. To have them open up and share who they were was something I initially hadn’t expected from scared, young minds.

I remember being in the exact same shoes as those freshman, and how much anxiety I felt that first day of school. (If I’m going to be one-hundred percent honest, I still feel that same anxiety return whenever I think about my first year of college!)

Nevertheless, as a leader, I felt cathartic when they applauded at the end of the session, implying that I had been successful in communicating my message of comfortability and getting rid of the rumors heading into high school.

It was an extremely humbling experience. Knowing that I had made a difference in their first days of high school as indicated through that memorable, heart-warming applause gave me the confidence to move forward in life, fully aware of my ability to make a positive change in the lives of others.

But after that first week, it was back to the grind. In all my classes, we hit the ground running.

Over summer vacation, I had already been occupied with several assignments to the extent that, once school had begun, I could barely tell the difference between the end of summer break and the beginning of class.

Still, I didn’t mind. I loved being back. I knew I’d be assigned some of the best teachers on campus, some of which I’ve already had the opportunity of knowing, others I’d meet for the first time. Regardless, I was thrilled to know I would no longer be sitting at home being unproductive as the summer days dwindled by.

However, in my ignorance and naivety, I completely shoved aside other challenges of senior year, mainly applying to college. If there’s one piece of advice to any teenager reading this article who has yet to apply to college: start now! Whether that’s determining which college you’d like to attend, what major you hope to study, or if college is even the best option in your case.

While the future is a scary thing, it doesn’t hurt to have some goals in mind. And if it happens to be that college isn’t one of them, that’s completely okay. Alas, I was drowning in homework, college issues and a few tears here and there.

This is not to say that I wasn’t learning. So far, senior year has been the most enlightening and intellectual. With every discussion, my knowledge grew. With every conversation, I had gained experience. With every word I wrote, I was filled with a sense of productivity. But with so much going on, it was difficult to find time for myself and to reflect on my actions.

Now that it’s winter break and we have three weeks off, I finally have that time. And if there’s one word that keeps coming to mind as I sit here and write about the first half of senior year, it would have to be, “woah.” I know, not the most intriguing word, huh? But “woah” in a positive, optimistic way. Woah, senior year is halfway done. Woah, look at much we’ve accomplished these past four years of high school. Woah, I’m eighteen now. Just, “woah.”

Before concluding this article, I wanted to talk about one more thing: company. No, not like a business or a corporation, but company as in people.

Looking back, I doubt I would have overcome the trials and tribulations of senior year had it not been for my friends and family. With their love and support I knew I could look past the stress and see some good at the end. And while I’ve lost the company of certain people throughout the years, we find company in new friends.

Sometimes, you never know; you might end up in the company of those lost friends later on. But I hope that each of you finds that company and hangs on to it.

For all those seniors out there, I leave you with this quote from Jake Gyllenhaal: “Don’t listen to what anybody says except the people who encourage you. If it’s what you want to do and it’s within yourself, then keep going and try to do it for the rest of your life.”