The First Day

This year on August seventeenth, I attended my first day of high school at Ruth Asawa School of The Arts.

Heavy fog was rolling across the skies of Twin Peaks, and tiny droplets of drizzling rain wet my wooly sweater vest. Below the rainbow steps down to the main "quad" of the school, I heard the cheery shouts and squeals of reuniting friends from old schools. The lot was crowded and cramped, with hundreds of energetic teens feeling a mix of different emotions on the big day.

I scanned the crowd, not finding a single familiar face under the rainbow varieties of masks. Finally, an old summer camp friend approached me with a sigh of relief and an exhausted "hello." We shared a laugh and began walking to our very first class, branching off into our separate directions of the building.

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To be surrounded by a group of students who worked just as hard (or even harder) than I did to be in a classroom at this school was equally comforting and petrifying. I sat at a single desk at the far end of the room, concentrating a bit too hard on the teacher's back-to-school lecture that was meant to relax our worries. The media and film arts class I auditioned for was scheduled before any of my academic courses, and before I knew it, students were getting up and streaming out the doorways to their first classes.

Panic rose in my aching stomach as I sunk in a cluster of tall, menacing seniors surrounding me. I had no clue where to go, who to talk to, or when I was due for attendance. However, as far as new experiences go, I honestly did enjoy getting lost in a place so unfamiliar to me after seeing the same walls of my house for a year and a half. It felt foreign, and it puzzled me. I missed that feeling.

Happy first week, students. :)

-Chloe