I moved to Cleburne the summer before my freshman year from a tiny town about 200 miles away. The fact that Cleburne had a Wal-Mart was altogether fascinating to me. I had never eaten at a Burger King, never seen a Braum’s, and never even heard of Fort Worth before. Therefore, in addition to beginning high school, facing Cleburne was an entirely new experience.

That first day of fish camp for band held many surprises: not knowing anyone, learning how to backwards march, and, OH MY, the high school has two stories! Stairs! An Elevator! I was certainly overwhelmed. Of course, just like every freshman girl in band, I developed a crush on the dreamy senior drum major, Garret. My senior, Jarred, always had the best time in band. He taught me that throwing sticky people on the ceiling in the secondary, “borrowing” music stands and/or marching uniforms for personal use, and excessive amounts of Halloween candy were all acceptable and even expected things in band. Freshman year also included the forming of the H-Squad, watching movies and witnessing other types of entertainment in Mrs. Lundy’s class, hearing Callahan report a “10²” as his grade in Mrs. Bundock’s Biology class, running on the varsity track and cross country teams, a bomb threat, seeing Trenton get banana-ed at the first pep rally, watching the amazing Vacation Man do his thing at each pep rally, getting my letter jacket (even though it was the new color,) and singing the heavenly tune of the Spice Girl’s “Wannabe” at the top of our lungs while snaking through various Cleburn businesses’ parking lots. Although most of freshman year was just as awkward as acting out Romeo and Juliet in English, I had so much fun. Maybe not as much fun as Thomas and Hailey had dancing to “Thriller,” though.

Sophomore year, I was the stuff. Being a leader in band meant that I pretty much ruled the school. I embraced this attitude, joining about 10 clubs and doing everything. Mrs. Jenkins regularly shot down any confidence I had, though, in fourth period chemistry. Does anyone understand chemistry anyway? (Besides Kaitlin and the potion master herself, I mean.) I was terrified of tiki dolls thanks to Mrs. Jenkins, thought that that little cat had a mind of its own, and learned to be very, very proud of a 65 on a test. Also, Mr. Reyna’s memorable Spanish 1 class is where I fell in love with Spanish. In other news, the class of 2011 faced a lot of drama sophomore year. Turning our backs at the pep rally, getting egged at my sweet sixteen party, receiving two weeks off for “Swine ’09,” getting stuck on the Jurassic Park ride at Disney Land with Hayley, Hailey, and Dana, the midnight premier of Twilight, and the Cleburne earthquakes were all definitely vivid moments in my memory.

Junior year, we were upperclassmen. AP classes began, including AP US History (APUSHIST,) a.k.a. the bane of our existence. Luckily, we got to relax for at least one class period a day while watching Mythbusters. Precalculus wouldn’t have been fun without Mrs. Mariott’s amazing math songs, getting lost in polar graphing land, and proving at least a few problems QE:D. In English class, we learned the scent of childhood and saw Mrs. Deangelo dancing in the video of Sleepy Hollow. Mrs. Kauffman’s cat, Oscar, my monkey lunchbox, and Caroline’s sweater were popular lunch conversation topics. The highlight of the year was the class of 2011 actually winning a Spirit Stick! Also, the snowpacalypse was a rich blessing to us juniors (who had already developed a mild case of senioritis.) Although junior year wasn’t quite as righteous and wicked as Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the lack of any bogus or most non-triumphant drama was a relief.

Senior year was most definitely the best year! The class of 2011 brought the bonfire back, got stuck in the elevator at the Exchangette’s banquet during the best song, witnessed a pretty intense tornado drill and made friends with the tornado drill sergeant, had Prom at the Conference Center, and got to graduate at the same time as Harry Potter! We played baseball in AP macroeconomics with a paper airplane (only between every other brain draining FRQ,) ate cake in senior English (only after writing the most epically intense senior research papers that anyone has ever written ever,) and determined who murdered who in Forensics (only after Mrs. Jenkins delightfully assigned us a 21 page lab write up.) Some of my favorite memories from senior year include being on the homecoming court, finally choosing the University of Texas at Austin to attend for college and running track (HOOK ‘EM!,) eating Thanksgiving meal at our lunch table and being the envy of everyone else in A lunch, Mrs. Jenkins’ 4th period forensics class (‘nuff said,) Katie falling at the Capitol, doodling masterpieces on the tables in English, and the senior meetings, even though it seemed like I always said “does that kid even go here? I’ve never seen him before in my life” at every single senior meeting. Everyone knew that senior year was supposed to be easy, so it was pretty doggone wild that it was the hardest academic year of my life! Honestly, though, if I had to go back to high school, I’d just be a senior four times. The workload is insane, but being a senior is worth it.

Much of what I learned in high school wasn’t in the classroom. I learned how to “get down with my bad self,” who my real friends were, what it means to take off your shirt in a street fight, the terror that are the tiki dolls, and what it means to be a Yellow Jacket. I’ll always watch my back in the lunch line and be on the look out for some drama at lunch. Some of the most memorable high school things were sagging your pants in the math department so that you didn’t get caught for being out of dress code, rocking out to Gramblin’ at the pep rallies and football games, entering through the back of the school (which is totally the front, by the way,) seeing new counselors every time you went into the counseling center, playing games in BCIS…all period long, getting mad at whoever messed up and made Mr. Pritchett turn off the snack machines, football games at the Rock and squishing into the student section, freaking out over memorizing the Canterbury Tales, having Prom at the high school, barking at cars, wishing that you could take just one peek into Mr. Petross’ magical Narnia closet, hearing a cat meowing in the hallway and looking for a certain teacher, and using the only real staircase in the entire school (the science staircase- everyone knows it’s the only one worth climbing.) High school is where I got to be me, skipping through the hallways when I wasn’t supposed to, painting my fingernails crazy designs during class, and asking off-topic questions in the middle of a lesson (even though Mrs. Gresham threatened to give me a ticket for disruption of class.) It’s sad leaving high school because I know how much I’m going to miss my incredible friends, my teachers, the school spirit, and so much else, but I can’t help getting extremely excited for the future. Life isn’t ending with graduating high school; it’s just beginning. I can’t wait to make new friends and memories in college, but I’ll always remember the goofy times I had in high school.