Embracing Tomorrow
Introduction:
My goal for this essay is to tell the story of me coming to SLA and to teach all readers about the importance of giving new things a chance. The issue that I face throughout this short story is changing schools. At first I don’t give the new school a chance, because I enjoyed life at my old school, but once I was able to be honest with myself I began to enjoy my new school. I am proud of my honesty throughout the story. This was a tough time for me and I haven’t shared the full story of my high school adjustment with anyone and I think that this is a step towards that. In the future I would like to work on reflecting throughout the story. I may have done a satisfactory job in this story, but it was one of the hardest things for me to do throughout this story.
The sky darkened as two of my neighbors and I walked home from the sledding hill. They babbled on about our great day of sledding and snowball fights. But I wasn’t able to enjoy reflecting on this day with them. High school acceptances were to come out in five minutes. We walked around an apartment building that created a wind tunnel, with strong gusts stringing our faces, but I hardly felt it. My only thoughts focused on whether I’d spend four more years at Masterman or whether I would be forced to go elsewhere.
Throughout my life, things had usually gone my way. But it turned out I was only a few minutes away from the painful experiences of disappointment and adjusting to something new and unwelcome. As we reached our street, my nerves grew worse. I believed I deserved to be accepted to Masterman High School, but one less-than-stellar standardized test score threatened to change that. Masterman was my home, the school where all of my friends whom I had grown to love the previous four years went. I didn’t want to leave them and go to another school, such as Central, SLA, or even a private school. I bid my neighbors goodbye as I climbed the front steps outside my house. As I had a million times, I walked in the door, but I felt as though my whole life was about to change. I pulled off my snow boots, snow pants, and jacket waiting to hear my future.
I walked up the stairs. My dad stood at the landing above with a laptop in his hand, his face suddenly frozen. I asked nervously, “Did I get in?”
There was a pause.
“No.”
That one “no” crushed me. I grabbed the computer, hoping it would all be a bad joke, but he wasn’t lying. I stared at the Masterman slot and then I scrolled down slightly and saw that I had been accepted to SLA. This did not cheer me up. I perceived that SLA was the weird kids school. I didn’t want to go there. I knew I wouldn’t be happy there.
That fall I arrived at SLA with a grimace on my face. The first month at the school had confirmed what I had first feared. The kids were weird and annoying. All I could look forward to was the weekend when I could see my Masterman friends again. Looking back, I hadn’t allowed myself to enjoy the school. I had replaced every moment that I actually did enjoy at SLA with how much I missed my friends at Masterman.
One day, in October, my feelings about SLA began to change. In English, a boy had hung his bag from the back of his chair, leaving it sagging open where he couldn’t see it. A few kids quietly tossed a few pencils and paper into his bag as a joke. The boy didn’t notice. At first, I found this rather dumb. A few other kids chipped in, adding books to his bag. Just as I was starting to enjoy myself, the teacher stepped in. But much to my surprise, instead of reprimanding them she took a potted plant off of her own desk and put it into this boy’s bag. He continued to be oblivious. More things were tossed in as the new contents of the boy’s bag commanded the attention of the entire room. Finally, with an overflowing bag and the snickers of classmates he turned around.
“WHAT?” he yelled as he turned around to see the contents of his bag.
The entire classroom burst out laughing, me included. I realized how was nice it was to be in a relaxed setting like this where the class could make a brief joke without a teacher punishing those involved. This was also a new experience for me I liked. At Masterman, the kids were so focused and the teachers so strict that this never could have happened.
In my first month at SLA, there had been moments when I had enjoyed myself, but all I would allow myself to think of were the bad moments. Once I opened up my mind and gave the new school and the new people a chance, I started really enjoying myself. Had I stayed at Masterman, it is possible that I would have been happier. It is also possible that the overload of work and being stuck seeing the exact same kids for eight years would not have made me as happy a person. Either way, I am very happy that I got to meet all these new people and experience a whole new type of learning at SLA.
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