High school truly has been a journey for me.  Experiences of what feels new can help define a person, or that person carries out who they’ve already been through the new situations. I, first coming into high school, didn’t have the idea how this was all going to play out. 

Throughout all my experiences for these four years, there’s something I found to keep in mind of what is important: keep in mind what’s important.

I remember multiple people talking to me about high school and how important it is to get certain things done. I found that some people don’t really focus on what’s important at times, and it ends up making things harder for them. Sure, there are some obvious examples of those not doing their work for class and end up failing, but there are others things that make me question how would those people live their lives in the future if they never focus on what is important, even in the far future. 

Fighting is one example I can think of. The school year of 2021-2022 makes me think of disaster when it comes to the “peace-levels” in Parkdale.

It was so bad that I made an article on it. I talked about how a security guard, who was in Parkdale at the time, told me that there were a total of 20 fights and 12 people expelled this school year. Keep in mind that I worked on that piece in December, so the timespan of September to December gives people a better idea of how frequent these fights were. That’s like a fight every week since we started. I think the principal of the school made it pretty clear that fighting can lead to being expelled. Even so, it seemed like a bunch of students were ready to throw away their life at Parkdale to get a couple hits in. 

Also, being a senior and having to do things like applying for scholarships, schools, opportunities, and probably more hasn’t been the best. That’s definitely something that I wish I focused on early in my high school life, just to have things planned out. I would recommend that to people who are not a senior in high school yet.