When I started high school I had set out on a quest that would not only span over years but also take numerous sleepless nights and copious amounts of wasted scrap paper to complete. With the hitting of the send button, my senior quote was officially in, and my high school-long mission of submitting a meaningful yet light-hearted senior quote (stated above) was complete.

To those of you who do not know me, this quote may seem like something short of what I have built it up to be. However, for me, this line perfectly depicts my high school experience, as it fell a little short of what I expected. Growing up, I had romanticized what my high school years would be like through watching movies and TV shows uch as High School Musical , John Tucker Must Die , One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl . As a result, I was in for a rude awakening as I took my first steps on campus as a doe-eyed and hopeful freshman.

After my first day at CHS, I went home with a feeling of disappointment as I came to terms with the fact that I attended an ordinary high school where perfectly choreographed dance numbers were only a thing for the movies. I realized that the fictional high schools I fell in love with were just that: fictional. I had to learn that my high school experience was what I made it out to be, and I was not going to waste the better part of my teenage years binge watching every cliché high school movie and television show.

In short, my senior quote represents one of the high school lessons that I learned as a freshman; to accept my life as it was and make it my own has led me to live a pretty great four years. These moments- everything from being a white southern farmer, rocking out to canyon songs on the Malibu back-road and rescuing a turtle from the Commons (then later returning that turtle) to name a few-are what made my high school years worthwhile, and all of this was unscripted.

My years here at CHS have been nothing like what I expected, but these “letdowns” are what motivated me to write my own story. However, if you asked me if would I trade it all to have Lucas Scott look at me with sultry eyes and ask if my car needed a tow? My answer would be absolutely.