High School Reflection

FRESHMAN

What a year! My first day of high school, I walked over to my best friend Shea Lenna's house to walk to school. Desert Ridge High School was right across the street from my house. My schedule went like this:

1st- Biology, Mr. Golladay

2nd- Seminary, Brother Blair

3rd- Girl's PE, Coach Jones

4th- Yearbook, Mr. Hearne

5th- Lunch

6th- English, Mr. Frost

7th- Math 1/2, Mrs. Minor

I was a geek and had my little map in hand, and walked into the front office doors. I was going to be walking through these doors for the next four years... wow. I see the courtyard and it's full of older, scary looking kids. They are so old! I see a few people I know... and I walk up the stairs to go to Biology. Thank goodness I studied my map all night long so I wasn't late for my classes. Mr. Golladay is crazy insane, with a puff ball of white hair to top it all off. He's going to be fun, but some kids don't look so sure.. Seminary was great! Kinds scary because I have no idea how Seminary works, but they showed a hilarious video, so I'm gonna like it. Third hour I have a TON of friends in! We all became friends right away, and I think this will be a ton of fun! There are some girls in here who are "those" kind of girls, but they shouldn't be a bother. Fourth hour... yearbook... totally NOT what I was expecting, there are only girls in here and they kinda scare me. The teacher is bizarre, but I think I could like him eventually. It's really relaxed in here, I can't wait to get started! I hope I can pick up the pace in here. 5th hour... lunch, finally! Thank goodness I have it with all my girls! I got hit with a roll... I'm done with high school. Haha! 6th hour English... not too thrilled about this! My teacher doesn't seem like he knows what he's doing, and he's more of the friend type rather than teacher. There are a whole bunch of kids from my elementary school in here, so this should be entertaining. Math.. last hour of the day. What a way to end this all, with my least favorite thing in the world. My teacher is really nice, though! I hope I can understand math this year, I've had really bad teachers since Junior High. All in all, I like high school a ton better than junior high. 

Freshman year went by SO fast. I was always hanging out with my friends. I fell in love with Biology and thought it was the greatest thing ever. In Seminary I loved it from the very beginning, Brother Blair was the best! He was in my ward so I always saw him, we were pretty good friends and understood each other's sense of humor. In PE my friends were hilarious! We all fell in love with Taylor Lautner, and loved watching his SNL videos. Anna Dong (my best friend since 7th grade), Brittany Craine, Hailey Reisner, Taylor Lucas and Amanda Colacito... we killed everyone at Danish Kickball, Badminton, Ultimate Frisbee! We were the athletic ones who weren't bratty or super weird. Just the normal ones! It was so much fun, despite Carol hating on me and pushing me and dumb stuff like that, PE was the best. We did the craziest stuff. We all went to the football games on Friday nights and were typical little freshmen. In Yearbook, I fell in love with that class and everything about it. Mr. Hearne is my favorite teacher, we really hit it off! He is so random and crazy and I love it! Meaghan and Kaitlyn scared me, but I know they love me deep inside, I'm the only one that doesn't annoy them. They want me back for next year! Some girls are getting jealous. Hearne brought out my love for geeky things (Doctor Who, fonts, photography, design, Sherlock, all things British...), and that is where my geeky spark ignited. I love designing pages and making everything look pretty. That's when I'm in my element the most! I'm definitely coming back next year. We're going to California in the summer for camp! I can't wait! I started designing and thinking of the theme Crunch the Numbers next year, and I'm pretty sure they're gonna choose my theme! I just love this place and all of the weird posters. In lunch, it was always entertaining. We drew funny stuff, and just did crazy things and didn't care what others thought. In English, I really hated it all year long. We did nothing that interested me. The only thing I loved was the poetry unit. After turning mine in, Mr Frost pulled me out of the classroom, cried, and thanked me for my beautiful poems.. He is such a jerk I was not expecting him to cry! It really touched me, and after that I didn't hate him anymore. It was a different side of me, he said I really moved and inspired him. Wow! Math was terrible all year long, my teacher had a baby halfway through the year and we had this crazy British substitute Mr Bartholomew... he was really weird and liked talking to me a little too much. 

Overall, that was a great year! I was really involved in school... Yearbook, Ecology Club... football games, drama plays, comic relief night... I can't wait for my sophomore year! :) Go Jags!!

SOPHOMORE

If I would have known last year that this would be my last year at DRHS.. I wouldn't have gotten so attached. THIS is my high school. I don't care if I'm moving in October to Queen Creek. I was really angry this year. My first day was bittersweet. My schedule was this:

A-Hour- Digital Photo 1/2 - Mr. Mangone

1st- French 1 - Mrs. McMullin

2nd- Math - Mr. Parker

3rd- Honor's English - Ms. Thomas

4th- Yearbook - Mr. Hearne

5th- Lunch

6th- Chemistry - Mr. Iannarelli

7th- Seminary - Brother Pickeral

This whole year looking back was very toxic. I was not the same person I was last year. I was angry and bitter because my mom was getting remarried and I'd be moving to Queen Creek. I really just hated everyone. It was a strange year. I know now that it was toxic, but I was on top of my game and happier than ever! I can't decide if it was good or bad for me.. I became really negative and chose more negative friends. They were great girls, and I feel we needed each other, but I could have been closer to Anna, Hailey, and Taylor a bit more. I was really involved with Yearbook. Camp was awesome! I loved every minute of it, the Angel's baseball game and getting mysterious liquids poured on me from 5 stories up, reading "children's" stories in the hotel lobby while staying up till midnight on a Mac working like crazy, spending the day with crazy Canadians, going to Disneyland for four hours, going shopping, being scared from Meaghan and Kaitlyn... it was all great!! I worked on my theme like crazy and I ended up winning and we worked on that for the rest of the year. Best. Feeling. Ever. Digital Photo was great! Kiley, Kolyn, and Treyson are the greatest! All of our arguments and bickering! Haha! I love them. Turns out, I'm jsut naturally beastly at photoshop! My first love for photography was found this year. French.. oh I love French! I was awesome at it! Math was actually great! My teacher was very good at what he did and I got the highest grade in math that year. Yearbook, was just spiffy and all things lovely. Again, I was the design editor, I was the best and I loved every minute of it! Lunch was good. At the beginning of the year I had to choose between friends, and I chose Brittany, Brenna, and Imia. We had a blast the whole year, too. But it wasn't the same as last year. Lunch was just a great time, we stalked football players... me and Brittany had our "husbands" and we'd take creepy pictures of them and just had a blast being immature and creepy! Thank goodness for Brenna's zoom. ;) Chemistry was the worst experience of my life. My teacher was creepy and didn't know a thing about teaching... and it was just hard! It was entertaining, but I wasn't happy with the end results. Seminary.... best thing of my life! My class was THE BEST. We had a ton of goofy seniors and everyone just loved each other and the environment was so great... I miss it! 

Along the way, I stumbled a few times.. did some things I shouldn't have... so sophomore year was my best and worst year at the same time. I was really angry, but so happy all the time. Just very emotional. But at the end I learned to love my new life and get over certain things. The highlight of my year was designing my final yearbook, and winning. Sitting up in Hearne's chair with everyone's eyes on MY project and them voting for my theme and designs.... I felt the best I ever have up there. It was hard though. I'm not gonna see it get finished. I'm moving schools for next year. I hope and pray that they will keep my ideas and designs pure and lovely.. Saying goodbye to that life was so hard. It is for the better, no matter how much I hate to admit it. 

JUNIOR

I can't believe it's already over... it seems like it was just July 27th and I was walking around by myself at lunch. And then Mogame came and got me and introduced me to my best friend Lauren Haws! This year, I was definitely happier and better than ever before. I finally found myself this year. This February, actually. It took me a while, but I feel myself with this new lifestyle. I feel complete. This is the girl that those people should have known about, but I wasn't strong enough then. I've still had some struggles in school with kids who don't understand my geekiness, but that doesn't matter. The hardest thing I did was go without Yearbook... I knew it wouldn't be the same, so I didn't even give it a shot. But that is what I love to do the most, and I'm going to take it next year... anyways, the first day was weird. I've never been the new girl before, and that was a little hard. My schedule was:

0-Hour - Seminary, Brother Johnson

1st Hour - Algebra, Mrs. Bowser

2nd Hour- Dual Credit English, Mrs. Holland

3rd Hour- French 2, Mrs. Edwards

4th Hour- Honors AZ/US History, Mr. Decker

B Lunch

5th Hour- Graphic Design, Mr. Ramirez

6th Hour- Human Biology, Mr. Fairhurst

Brother Johnson was fabulous! He was just the teacher I needed this year, not too crazy, but could fill my spiritual cup all the way. I really likes him, although a lot of people didn't. He took the time to get to know me and Porter, and I really appreciated that. I was class president the second semester, which was neat. I didn't have seminary with hardly any QCHS kids, so that was a bit different, but I think that's best. I needed to get comfortable with the way things are in QC before that. I can now bear my testimony on the spot, play piano when needed, etc. This had been such a blessing to have it the first hour of the day, even if I had to wake up at 5:07 in the AM every day. Math was horrible. My teacher didn't teach us, and when she did, the tests had nothing to do with the material she covered... I should have tried a bit harder, but math isn't something my brain thinks is important, so it disregards everything math related, unfortunately... English was a breeze. I'm not kidding. It was a COLLEGE level class, yet all we did was read 1/4 of a book, watch the movie, and then forget about it. I'm not complaining, I loved having to not write essays, but sometimes it got kinda boring not having to do anything in that class. I'm having her as a teacher again next year for Dual, so let's hope it's just a BIT more challenging. She was a great teacher when she taught though, she was real chill and gave us a lot of freedom because we're honors students... I love that! Haha! French 2 was icky. There were a ton of annoying kids in there. I knew more than my teacher did. So I didn't really learn anything new. Maybe one or two things, but most of the time I was the one correcting her... so I'm kinda bummed about that. I was planning on fluently speaking French, but now if I want to learn it I'd have to teach myself and I'm just not good at that stuff! History was difficult. I haven't taken a history class since 8th grade. And he just assumed that everyone knew everything already. The people in the class were HILARIOUS. I felt like I was in an episode of The Office... it was so funny!! I'm gonna miss that class even though they'd harass me half the time. Haha. Lunch was okay... it was a table that we were only really friends with one other person at the table, and that would be Lauren... so when she wasn't here, it was just awkward and silent. It was only a hald hour long lunch perioid, waaay shorter than what I was used to, but at times it felt like a decade long. :P no one was sad when it was the last day of lunch, to put it simply. haha! No, we had some good times... food fights galore... making fun of other dumb people... flipping each other's back packs, folders, and notebooks inside out when they left the table! Graphic Design wasn't all that great. My teacher hated all of my projects and told ME to think more outside of the box. Sorry my favorite font isn't Comic Sans or I don't overuse drop shadows and inner glows. Didn't know you had to be a crappy designer to pass the class. Ironic, eh? Yeah, so he just really annoyed me the whole year. I learned to like him eventually... but the kids in there were troublesome. They all loved my designs, which was cool. But they harassed me the whole year! Putting paper bits in my hair, writing mean things on my computer, cheating off of me, writing on me with pen, blocking me in corners, etc... haha they meant no harm, and I wasn't offended, it was really funny actually! Those are the only kids I'm gonna miss! :( haha! All those druggie "brown people" as they called themselves. Haha oh the people at Queen Creek... I loved Anatomy! It was really challenging, but my teacher was GREAT! I really understood the way he taught, and I liked the kids in there and the subject. We went to a human cadaver lab on a field trip once, and it was so cool! Another time we dissected fetal pigs.. haha.

This year wasn't all that bad. I didn't hate it as much as it seemed I did, but I also didn't like it as much as I said I did. It was a tad better than okay, if you want to put it that way academically. QCHS isn't my favoritest place, they're very backwards in the way they do things, but the people are a lot nicer here than as DRHS. I like them both for different things.. and since I'm considering the San Tan mountains more my home than the Supers, I gotta say that Queen Creek is my hometown, mostly because I found myself here. 

SENIOR