By Staff
When I first looked at my Literature assignment (to write an outlook on my senior year), I saw a collage. Or maybe it was not a collage so much as a film. Try to picture it with me: On the screen in my mind I see first the faces of my classmates. I hear a familiar laugh, though it seems to echo as if it were coming from somewhere in the distance. Now the film skips forward. I see myself at a football game, camera in hand. The film skips again, then stops at the image of me at a dance. I am the one laughing now, my head thrown back joyously. At the very end of the film I see not only myself, but my entire class, receiving our diplomas. Then the movie fades into grayness, playing a closing theme of (Don't ask me why, it just is) "Auld Lang Syne".
Those images are the first things I think of when I imagine my senior year, yet if I stop my imagination and really look at my goals and expectations, those things aren't the real focus. Despite all the hype and excitement surrounding senior year, I think that everything in life should be a learning experience. It's like something Mark Twain once wrote. He said "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." I hope that I don't get so caught up in actual school activities that I neglect what I have always felt were my most valuable learning tools. What I mean is that we learn not only in school, but also from everything around us. For me, actually writing for a newspaper or being in a play has been more enriching than any class in journalism or drama could ever have been. It really comes down to something that I have learned: You get out only what you put in. I have found that if I give 100 % to learning-not only from actual classes but also from life experiences-I will get back that much.
That is what I see for my senior year. I hope to learn constantly, to enrich myself in as many ways as possible, and to have fun in the process. I do not want to lose my focus or succumb to "senioritis". Yes, I see myself graduating, and all the things that come before and with it, but I don't see that as the end of my education. I see it only as a stepping stone to new experiences, new possibilities, and yes, even new outlooks.
So what is my total goal this new school year? I think it is summed up by this: I want this year to be a time of better preparing myself not only for college, but for life. I see it as molding myself so that when May comes and I enter the scary world of adulthood I'll know what to say.
Yes, world, I am ready!
Lindsey can be reached via email at lindsey_sherrill@hotmail.com