Page 51 - PINE CREST 2005

EXiT

As I walk through Pine Crest, and I look through the halls or peer into the senior
quad, I often think — “how are we this old, and where did all of the big kids go?” The
freshman look like middle school runaways, somehow sneaking into high school two
years too early. Listening to the juniors in my classes flip out about GPA brackets
makes me remember and laugh, and I have to fight every impulse to say, “have fun with
that new SAT! I want to warn them about spending long weekend hours paying huge
sums of money to experience the ultimate horror in SAT tutoring, learning new vocab
words and being forced to have genuine conversations with Mr. Schnabel, Mrs. Bell,
Mrs. Morrison, or all three!” The college guidance office has become my new home,
and I find myself compulsively emailing any and every college guidance counselor
who will listen to my petty problems about exactly how I should phrase “my biggest
accomplishment” without bragging or exagerrating, but still sounding like a great
candidate. All anyone can talk or think about is early decision— who applied where,
who is or is not getting in—and Michelle Bejar’s compiled list of everyone’s early
choices is proof of our collective morbid curiosity.
December 15th is synonymous with Dante’s description of Judgement Day in
which there are 3 options: paradise (acceptance into the school of your choice); limbo
(the waiting period until you get your decision better known as a the ever-popular
deferral); or-rejection-consignment to the Ninth Circle. This entails suddently coming !
down wtih the flu for at least a week in order to fill out the other applications
which were so deftly avoided, and about 6 more months to really cultivate
your new best friendships with both Mrs. Hunt and Mrs. Miller. I find myself
often wondering—why couldn’t my mother have just gone to Botswana or
Thailand or Cuba for a few months to birth me?
And then, just as every aspect of life seems kind of bleak, when you really just don’t care
anymore about any facet of the Pine Crest Community, you know “senior itis” has fully
set in. The only thing I am really enthusiastic about is the possibility of shirking all
responsibilities as often and emphatically as possible. The Pine Crest news and gossip
has become so petty, so ridiculous, and even so uninteresting—I know its time to move on
bigger and better things. All I want to do is glide through and pray that my senior ytjgr
second trimester grades miraculously won’t be seen by any colleges.
But just when I thought I really was going to crack, suddenly I discovered I had made it
through second trimester, and I realize I can sit in the quad for however long I like, and
come to school late as often as I want, despite Mrs. Schneider’s scary disapproving looks.
I am also starting to realize that I only have one trimesters left at the place I’ve spent
almost my entire life. I’m so genuinely excited to be around so many of the people I’ve
known for so long, and I really can’t imagine starting completely over somewhere else. I
love how I feel everyone in the class of 2005 knows and understand each others’ quirks—
that it isn’t necessary to explain any strange behavior, because it isn’t that strange anymore.
There is a growing feeling of comfort I have now around everyone— nothing is as
embarrassing, nothing is as ridiculous, nothing is as important as it once was.
And somehow, over the years, I've also realized that the administration really is endearing,
I've worn my Winterfieta t-shirt every weekend for the past three years, and I actually LIKE
having a uniform. As the bell tower chimes the Beatles or Simon and Garfunkel, it makes
me wonder if I have to leave here just when things are starting to get good. I absolutely
despise cheering of any kind and really don’t enjoy overexerting my vocal chords, but I
will shriek the senior cheer with perhaps even more pride and excitement and joy as the
year draws to a close. So maybe “senioritis” is simply a facade we seniors find necessary to
perpetuate a defense mechanism which makes leaving this place, leaving our friends, leaving
those we love actually possible.

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