By Daniel Roth
A college application awaits filling out on my computer screen, wanting to know everything about me and my education.
Hundreds of emails and phone calls from college enrollment counselors have been read and listened to, all promising that I would be a great fit at their campus.
A year from now, I will be walking the paths of a college somewhere, fully absorbed.
This whole college experience is exciting and all, but thinking about it gives me goose bumps.
What happened to the last 17 years of my life?
I’m months away from being an adult, and my childhood is spiraling down. The childhood that seemed so long, yet so short at the same time.
I remember back to my very, very first day of school at Pratum, when I was all set to go with new school clothes and pencils and markers, excited and anxious to meet new people and new friends.
Being a tiny kindergartener, I always looked up to the giant eighth graders who were just right down the hallway, promising myself that I would be as cool as them when I got older.
The years went by and before I knew it, I was in the Big Room as the big man on campus, head honcho of Pratum.
I could imagine the new kindergartners looking up to me in the same way I looked up to them, so I went through my final year at Pratum as an angelic example to the kids or not.
Life was good at the top of the food chain, but all of a sudden the tables were turned, and I was the annoying, immature freshmen whose apparent purpose was to tick upperclassman off. From the start, I tried my hardest to be the top in my class, from grade point average to coolness factor.
I don’t know how well that’s worked out but I can say I tried.
High school has been an absolute blast, where I have met some great friends and teachers. I’ve experienced it all, with bone-chilling football games on Friday nights, Brueckner-isms, an adrenaline-rushing state basketball tournament, prom and crazy pep assemblies. I have risen through the ranks and am now the senior, Class of 2011.
In the midst of all this fun that I enjoyed during my childhood, college has always lingered. Why else would I try my hardest to do well in school? So I can go to college, graduate, get a well-paid job and have a good adult life.
And now it is literally just around the corner. And I worry. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? I have no idea. Am I ever going to see my high school friends after graduation day?
Maybe.
There are so many questions that come with college and sometimes I feel that there aren’t enough answers. But then I see the flipside of it. I had fun at Pratum, I’ve had more fun at Silverton High, so why can’t I have even more fun at college?
It seems logical that the fun should keep rolling on. And chances are that I will meet some of my lifelong friends and will find the job of my dreams.
So I guess the most logical thing for me to do is go along with the whole application process excited and, well, as anxious as I was that day in kindergarten.
I’m about to walk into a completely new chapter of my life, and truth be told, I’m a little freaked out by it. But I know that I am going to have fun and will enjoy the college life.
