Haley+W

9th grade I’ve changed a lot since freshman year. I was awkward, shy, and unwilling to branch out to anything I wasn’t already familiar with. I was anti-conformist to the extreme, too tall for my age, and was yet to discover any form of makeup or hair product. I was contrary to the stereotypical freshman- I was unafraid to wear moccasin boots with cow print sweaters, or macaroni vests and I wore my hair to my elbows. However, as bold as I was with my wardrobe, in classes, I was almost the exact opposite. I avoided talking to teachers, or expressing my opinions in class. I was afraid of saying something that would spark controversy, and I didn't feel like I could adequately support any of my own beliefs. I had two best friends, Dana and Linelle, who I did everything with. Luckily, we all had the same lunch period both semesters, so we were able to sit in a small clump in the freshman corner of the cafeteria every day. We liked baking, watching Disney movies, having girls’ nights, and having eating competitions. In the mornings at school, if neither on campus yet, I’d either wander the halls aimlessly or go to class early and study for something arbitrary. I was fairly antisocial. On the weekends, I spent a lot of time with my neighbors. We rode our bikes everywhere, went to the pool when the weather was warm, and had karaoke competitions. 10th grade By 10th grade, I was ready for a bit of change. I had become a lot more comfortable in my own skin, and I was willing to branch out to people or situations I was unfamiliar with. I became far more animated when expressing my opinions in classes and more confident about what I believed in. I decided to reach out to other people, and I made a lot of new friends that way. Weekend beach trips became a regular happening, and my previous three-person girl-nights expanded to a group of nine. My new friends encouraged me to be more social. I started going to more school-sponsored events, like football games, and I became less self-conscious about having school spirit. I went to the state fair for the first time, and was peer-pressured into getting a Facebook. I was still slightly obsessive about keeping my grades unnecessarily high. Luckily the academic strain exerted on sophomores is limited, so I had a lot of free time I was able to invest in friends. 11th grade Junior year, I went to it’s a grind almost every Friday, mainly because I was determined to ace the SAT and my AP classes, which proved to be much more difficult than I had anticipated. 11th grade taught me to have an appreciation for caffeine and sleeping in on Saturdays. My life was dominated by AP Euro, APES, and AP English. I read the entirety of the AP European textbook and the Environmental science textbooks, with the exception of the last chapter in each. I was burnt out academically, which carried on through senior year. I attempted to learn guitar with Gurkin, which failed miserably. We ended up spending the majority of our guitar sessions quoting the office and cracking lame jokes. By the time I became a senior, I was really ready to graduate. The entire college application process was exhausting, especially with the incessant nagging, courtesy of my parents. By senior year, I learned