Freshman Files: Life At The Bottom

A freshman's life at the bottom of highschool is just the beginning of a long road.

image credited to picserver.org

A freshman’s life at the bottom of highschool is just the beginning of a long road.

Ruthie B., Editor Emeritus

The first day of high school…the first word that comes to mind is terrifying! I woke up in the morning so nervous. What was I supposed to expect? What I see in movies? Freshman getting thrown in trashcans or bullied by the upperclassmen? I didn’t know. High school seemed unpredictable.

The first bell rang, sounding the beginning of the newest chapter of my life. I found my first period…Spanish. I walked into a desk-less room, which I thought was a little weird. My teacher was nice, funny, and super welcoming. She taught us how to introduce ourselves in Spanish and say what we liked to do. Me llamo Ruthie. Me gusta jugar futbol.

My next class was English which, of course, was all the way across campus. I was nervous that I was going to be late and embarrass myself in front of the whole class because the stairs and hallways were so jammed. But I ended up getting there on time to quickly find out that my English teacher was very funny and sarcastic. I immediately noticed his Harry Potter posters all along the front of the classroom and I had a good  feeling that I was really going to like his class. Our first assignment was to make up a story about a painting of an old man writing in a book. It was fun to do creative writing and use my imagination.

After English, I headed to math which was all the way across campus (of course). The problem with a big campus is that there is so much walking and zigzagging through crowds of people. When I made it to math, I was greeted at the door by my teacher, who was handing out homework passes. I thought to myself, I already like this class. My teacher started out with some rules and then we got to put him on the hot seat and ask him any question we wanted to. He was very warm and encouraging, which helped ease any fear I had of failing math. Just for fun, he also threw out Jolly Ranchers .

After math, it was lunchtime (yay!) I was very relieved that I had lunch with my friends. For the first time, I got to see how high school friend groups worked. It was very interesting to see the different dynamics in each group. There seemed to be many people in their own groups and also many who sat alone with their earbuds. As for me, my friends and I exchanged stories of our mornings, so my first high school lunch was a lot of fun.

After lunch, I had art. My teacher told us a little bit about himself and helped us to get to know the feel of his art class. He showed us examples of projects from previous years (which were REALLY good, so I’m not sure how I’ll do since I’m seriously lacking art skills.) I guess we’ll see!

After art I had to walk all the way across campus (yes, again) to biology. We did a fun activity that included science labs and getting to know other people in the class. When I told one kid my name was Ruthie, he said, “like Babe Ruth?” (which made me laugh really hard.) All of my peers in that class seem like they will be a lot of fun, and the teacher is super nice so I’m looking forward to doing experiments and learning about biology.

My final class was soccer, back all the way across campus (go figure!). I had a brief meeting with the soccer team, which was fun because I got to see some familiar faces. However, I am SUPER nervous for tryouts next week!

Overall it was a very good day. Of course I had a little resentment towards it since it meant that summer was over. But, I think it’s a day I‘ll remember and not be horrified of. It definitely was not as horrible as I expected, so I am excited to see what the future holds.