Ah, high school. Adults will tell you it’s the best four years of your life. Students currently in high school, myself included, shed a tear when hearing this remark because we can’t help but think, “This can’t seriously be as good as my life gets, right?”

Kids in elementary and middle school are given false hope by watching movies and television shows that depict high school as this incredible place with endless fun opportunities and nonexistent dress codes (yes, I’m looking at you, Disney Channel). Sorry, kids, but no one actually gets up on the tables and sings during lunch. Well, I suppose you could, but everyone would awkwardly stare at you instead of join in.

When I’m watching Disney Channel or Nickelodeon with younger family members, I can’t help but point out everything wrong with how they portray high school. Some of the many thoughts running through my head include, but are definitely not limited to:

“How does anyone get anything done at this school?”
“No one actually does that.”
“How can they get away with wearing that?”
“They are actually terrible students.”

In reality, high school is a much less exciting place than portrayed in show business. Students stress over classes so much they feel like stabbing themselves with their own pencils, they come to school in sweat pants instead of designer outfits (and no, we can’t wear hats), and if anyone started dancing in the halls, they’d get yelled at for holding everyone up.

I’m not saying that high school is a miserable prison full of agony that you can only escape from by getting a diploma (well, sometimes it feels that way), but I will say that the only singing my classmates and I have done together was when we thought the school was burning down and began to sing “Burn Baby Burn” while waiting outside for the firemen. There was an aura of woe when we found out it was just a false alarm.

True, high school does have its pros as well as its cons, but calling it “the best four years of my life” is a bit of a stretch. Honestly, the part that sounds the most appealing to me is walking across the stage in four months knowing that it’s finally over.

Then college starts. More on that later.