The Friday Fives

April is nearly over and we are tumbling toward May and soon it will be the season of graduating. It seems like every class has graduations going on now, so how about you

1. Did you enjoy your senior year of high school?

Yeah. It was pretty great. We had a brand spanking new shiny high school. I was rocking it in speech and debate. I had an unofficial role as the official school MC for most assemblies and two independent studies with no real classwork expectations. Pretty fun.

2. Did you have a senior trip (high school) and were you able to go on it.

No. But in a rural area high school, all of our competitions were miles and miles away so lots of bus trips to Grand Junction, Gunnison, Aspen, Denver, Utah and beyond. In my freshman year, our band took a huge trip to the Portland Rose Festival via a convoy of school buses.

3. Was graduating (from either high school or college/university) a big thing with your family or just another day?

I was the first member of my family to graduate from college. It was a big deal for grandparents and parents.

4. What were you looking forward to the most after graduating from either high school or college/university?

I was fortunate to have a job at a newspaper right out of college and I was looking forward to that opportunity.

5. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your graduating self?

Pay more attention in high school to writing and English classes.  The math was not too important after all.

2 Replies to “The Friday Fives”

  1. 1) Yeah. Senior year was the only year of high school that was fun. Seemed that most people stopped being douche bags and started accepting more of their classmates. It was good times.

    2) Nope. I did get to be an Outdoor Lab counselor twice during my senior year, which has many great memories attached to those two weeks.

    3) High school was just another day. In fact I don’t think my Dad even came. College was a big deal for me, since it took so damn long to complete it. But Both my parents and my siblings all graduated and more from college.

    4) Going to Australia on a one-way ticket. But, alas, that was not to be due to a motorcycle wreck that put me three months into debt, so the trip was off and getting a job was on.

    5) Do the classwork.

  2. 1. Not really. I remember the year as being exceptionally stressful. I prepped for and took the SAT twice, applied to colleges, worked a job every weekend, took evening courses at the community college, and engaged in as many extracurricular activities as I could to look good on college applications. I was emotionally exhausted by the time I had made a college selection.

    2. Nope. I didn’t even attend any parties. I started a new summer job the next morning.

    3. High school graduation wasn’t a very big deal. College graduation just felt perfunctory, as college wasn’t really that hard.

    4. After high school, I was really looking forward to no longer living in Craig, Colorado. I hated that place (and I’m not that fond of it today).

    5. Upon entering college, I wish I had known how important it is in academia to establish social relationships with professors and other students. The professor controls the outcome, and the other students aren’t your competitors; they are literally your colleagues.

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