And as Such, the New Generation of Students Arrive to My Former School

*written at approximately 6:30 P.M. today in my high school cafeteria




Here I am in the cafeteria for my little sister's high school orientation basking in the always-familiar smell of my past life within these confines. All I see before me are little kids looking a little anxious about what high school has in store for them. This would be their first time being in my high school, I believe, so it would be safe to assume they're pretty nervous about going here. Surely, I felt the same way when I was in their shoes 4 years ago.

I didn't know what to expect of high school either in the leadup to my first day of sophomore year (I went to two high schools: a 9th grade school & a senior high school). I wondered whether it was going to match my expectations. As a kid, way before I went there, I developed somewhat of an image of what it was supposed to be like, more thanks in large part to the multitude of T.V. shows/movies that I watched. In those programs, high school was presented as a "cool and hip" place to go to. One of them was a movie called "High School Musical".


sigh


I thought dancing maniacally on the tables of the classroom and cafeteria was normal. I also thought making friends was going to be a piece of cake. These shows painted a utopian-like image of the high school life everyone of us in the real world dream of. "Yeah! High school is going to be a blast once I get there!" is what I thought.

Oh, how wrong I was......

As a matter of fact, it wasn't a blast.

I mean, it was fine and all, but it was underwhelming. It didn't fulfill my presumptive expectations, to say the least.

Now that my class graduated 2 years ago (Class of 2015 represent!!) from high school, we've made way for the next bunch of students to complete their 4 years in the same fashion, thus bringing in newer faces.

This generational change is already evident in my little sister's orientation. Seeing this happen makes me feel very old, even though I'm at the current age of 20. For a school, it's just any other day in its year-long routine of curriculum; for me, however, it's anything but. It's a reminder of how I'm really just a spoke on a wheel-- the dynamic wheel of generations--that never stops moving. Nothing's ever going to force it to stop. It's infinitely moving but there's no destination in sight. Once this current crop of students graduate in the future, the group behind them will only repeat the same path. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It'll never stop, but it is what it is. I guess I just have to deal with it.