A Sneak Peak In A Senior's Life
As the new school year rolled in, I don't think many of us actually absorbed the fact that we were now seniors, the oldest ones in the school, aside from the ancient faculty and staff, of course. After the 'first day adjusting phase' wore off, we are just realizing the significance of this. We weren't to be intimidated by older students anymore, nor be overshadowed by them, because, quite obviously, 'them' is now nonexistent. But then again, in the almight words of Stan Lee, the creator of Spiderman, 'with great power comes great responsibility.'
With being fourth year high school comes the sudden need to join all forms of extracurricular activities we've never tried before for the sake of it, the impending dread of application forms, panic over choosing the perfect courses for college, bustling over yearbooks and grad pics, and cramming study sessions for entrance tests in little over one night. There's also the arrival of much harder versions of previous subjects, and the impossible expectations of teachers that we have miraculously matured over the summer, which actually rarely turns out to be true.
There's less time for jokes or playing around; seriousness about studying and preparing for the future prove to be important, and we cannot afford to waste talents and energy to just floating along, drifting precariously on the brinks of academic failure. We need to strive to do well, because college wouldn't be looking for whoever has the funniest cracks in class or whoever can eat during discussions without the teacher noticing. You're either intelligent enough to get in or you aren't, and we cannot turn out to be the latter.
And to add to all that seemingly bone-crushing pressure, there is the 'requirement' to be a good example, a role model of sorts, to the younger batches. Another reason to not just avoid mistakes, but to completely not mess up, because the entire school is watching our every move and looking to us for advice, tips, and a blatant surivival guide to the tremulous years of high school. It's very hard, if one thinks about it, since most of us barely survived ourselves.
In conclusion, becoming a senior is more than having so-called 'absolute power' over the younger people in the school, or getting away with more things because we're graduating anyway. We need to be good role models and A-students for colleges to sniff out at the exact same time. But either way you look at it, it seems senior year might just be the last and best year of them all.
