by Brie

Created on: July 01, 2008

I recently graduated from high school, just this past June. I can honestly say that I have never been happier. I realized, after four years of what people say are the best years of your life, that high school proved to be far from the greatest years of my life. To prove my point, I based my senior film project on my high school career and how I really felt about it, and because I spoke so openly and spoke of nothing but the truth, my classmates responded in a way I had not expected. My English teacher praised me for my work, telling me that I could have won an award at NYU for my film. Now, I am not bragging because I find that to be a rather demeaning thing to do; I am just trying to make a point that I am unlike other pretentious teenagers who enjoyed their high school years because of the friends and memories they shared. I never experienced any moments in the four years that would constitute me having a great time. To be honest, I learned more about myself in my senior year than ever before, which I suppose any human being could say is a memory. As I spent time observing students walking throughout the halls and how they reacted in the classrooms, I came to find that most of my presence there was to find myself with the help of my surrounding environment, basing all of my knowledge on scientific fact that an individual's personality is formed by environment and heredity. I rarely spoke to people, which did not bother me at all, and I spent more time studying, in order to prepare myself for college. I saw that more than half of the students from my school who graduated had no goals in life, no purpose of living besides being parasites. I watched as these teenagers spent their time obsessing over their looks; their sneakers had to match with their shirt, and I couldn't be a part of something I did not agree with. Everyone I had known from the beginning of high school, even kids from junior high had transformed into pretentious teenagers. It caused me great depression at some point to finally realize that I was different from others; others that I had befriended and made future plans with. But I found that it was better for me to ostracize myself from others in order to find who I could be. I did not consider it a sacrifice to give up my old conventional ways of thinking. It hurts in the beginning to watch as your best friends reject you for not being like them, for not fitting into the crowd. But I was never like that, a person who would please others for their satisfaction. I grew up believing that there was more to life than to give into peer pressure and the stupid things that people will do. I grew up in high school. I matured and people didn't understand so people gave me dirty looks, thinking it would affect me. I grew up and I have no one else to thank but myself for never giving up and never being something I am not.

Learn more about this author, Brie.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.