Best of friends: Adriana DiMatteo (right), with Christina Solverson, ready for the Ironwood Ridge High School prom.
High school graduation season is here and thousands of kids will be saying goodbye to high school and hello to whatever is next.
This is a very exciting time, one that is filled with hope and dreams about what the future holds. For every high school senior, graduation marks the end of adolescence and the beginning of the rest of her life. What each graduate decides to do now is up to that individual. It is exhilarating to be on the threshold of so many new possibilities.
For me, the next step is college. That means learning new things, meeting new people and going to new places. All of these things excite me tremendously, but that does not mean that I did not enjoy my high school experience. OK, like most people, I did not enjoy certain aspects of high school. However, I don’t look back on these past four years and cringe.
I have learned so much in four years that it is overwhelming now that I look back and think about it. And I am not even talking about what I learned in school. Since I have been in high school I have acquired many life lessons. Here are a few of the things that I have realized:
1) People are not good at keeping secrets. If you tell someone a secret you might as well tell everyone, because the person you tell will most likely tell at least one person. That person will tell at least one person, and so on, until eventually everyone knows.
2) True friends are hard to come by. It is better to have one close friend rather than 100 fake ones. You should always try to surround yourself with people that like you for who you are.
3) Stuff happens. The best way to deal with it, I’ve found, is to laugh.
Academically, I have also learned a lot. Unfortunately, I won’t remember about 90 percent of it. Many of the most significant things you learn in high school are not in the classroom.
I have no idea where I will be or what I will be doing 10 years from now. A dream job for me though would be working at ESPN. Also, I hope that I will do a great deal of traveling in the future. The Mayan ruins in Mexico, Venice, Italy, and London, England are a few of the places that I most want to visit.
Also, I hope whatever job I have makes me happy, and if it doesn’t then I hope that I am least making a lot of money. However, one thing I do know is that the lessons I learned in high school will serve me well no matter what I am doing.
Most importantly though, I hope I don’t put my dreams and goals aside.
My biggest fear about the future is that I will go through life with unrealized goals and dreams. In the end, I hope that I can say that I lived my life to the fullest.
Adriana DiMatteo is a senior at Ironwood Ridge High School. E-mail: ad71690@yahoo.com
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TUCSON CITIZEN TEEN COLUMNISTS LOOK BACK ON THEIR HS YEARS