I must be crazy to trade in a life of comfort, happiness, and warmth from the love of my family, for the cold, stone hallways of a public school facility. What’s even more crazy is that I couldn’t be happier with my decision. North Platte High has treated me well in my one year here, and I’ve learned a lot. I’ve also had the opportunity to teach. I got to teach people that not all homeschoolers are plagued with the inability to socialize. After years of having to disguise myself when I left the house during school hours (to avoid interrogations from strangers who felt it was their duty to make sure I was properly educated), I finally had the chance to prove to the world that I can fit in, I can be normal! My quest was cut short however; by the time 3:27 rolled around on my first day I came to a realization… I didn’t really want to fit in.
I loved being home schooled, it gave me the tools I needed to make it through my senior year at NPHS, and the rest of my life. The things I treasure the most from being educated at home are the close relationship I share with my family, and the foundation it helped me build my faith on. Something was missing though, my one true love. Softball. I had always felt that my years of playing club softball in the summer wouldn’t be complete unless I participated in Varsity softball at the high school.
The benefits of staying home schooled had always outweighed the desire to attend NPHS, until the summer after junior year when I realized it was time to make my dream a reality. Going to high school, a dream??? I said I was crazy, okay. To many people’s surprise I was let out of the house and free to enter the walls of this school, with my family’s full support. It was a hard choice to make, but I wouldn’t change a thing either way. To paraphrase Hannah Montana, I got the best of both worlds.
This has been the most exciting/stressful/fun/scary year of my life so far. I experienced a lot of new things for the last time. Thank you teachers, and fellow students (most of you) for helping me grow as a person, and not treating me as bad as the freshmen. Thank you NPHS for putting my math skills to the test as well as my patience, also thank you for helping me realize I can snooze my alarm until 7:40 and still be at school by eight.
If I could sum up what I learned this year in one jumbled paragraph, full of cliches and nostalgia, it would look something like this:
Don’t stare and whisper about the new person, talk to them. Don’t disrespect teachers to be funny, it’s not. Be nice to people, it will make your day better as well as theirs. Spending a lot of money on clothes to impress people is pointless because they probably don’t care. If you’re in a sport, go to conditioning and give a solid effort at practice, you owe it to your team. You get to represent the school doing something you love, it will end soon so don’t take it for granted. Be a good teammate even from the bench. Being rude to people who don’t share your views just makes what you stand for look bad. Rushing into a relationship because all your friends are in one usually doesn’t work out. Don’t hide peoples’ keys, high school is stressful enough. Make time for your parents, you may not always get along but they won’t be around forever, and they are having a hard time with this too.
It’s no East High, but NPHS will always have a special place in my heart.