For months, I dreamed of pulling up effortlessly into the school parking lot on the first day of school in my shiny new car, with excited eyes gawking at me, wondering who the mysterious driver was.
As I opened the door and stepped out with my brand-new white sneakers, people would realize that it was me, and they’d be ashamed of not contacting me over the summer.
I was already too cool for them, anyway, going on my own journey of self-discovery and growing in immense maturity.
But dreams don’t come true when you’re too lazy to clean out your car and you’ve left your house too late to lace your new sneakers.
On the first day, it was too wet and rainy outside to make any effort of dressing my best and the driving proved so slow that when I actually arrived, I had to parking by the tennis courts and everyone was too busy rushing to homeroom to bother to take notice of anything.
Add the fact that it was 7:30 in the morning, a time I haven’t seen in three months, and you’ve got the first day of senior year.
I guess I was expecting something more exciting: full of sun, big hugs and heartfelt reunions with friends with whom I’d lost touch over the summer.
I’m sure all that was going on, except I was too late to experience it.
The first day of high school was pretty routine, to say the least.
It was like summer vacation never happened.
The classes are long as ever (even when classes are shortened to accommodate a longer home-room), the teachers are the usual bunch (many I’ve already had in earlier years) and no one ever waits for seniors to begin work. For us, it’s straight to the books.
By the time half the day had passed, I’d already been stuck with hours of homework.
The highlight of the day seemed to be, once again, tasting the school’s heavily salted and crispy french fries.
Oh how I missed those fries.
Mike Nguyen is a Reporter for Youth Journalism International.
