Life sometimes means doing something I do not want to do. Life is about responsibility, doing what I should realistically do. And when what I do doesn’t make me happy, I show a stubborn forbearance in the face of adversity: I try to deal with it until I cross the finish line and somehow be happy in the end. It’s a dumb way of thinking.

By the time this first column goes to print, I will have forgotten all about it. In fact, I will be quite busy throwing myself a party to commemorate another momentous occasion: my first ever filled-up notebook. Gasp!

I need to create a filter for my travel packing list; right now, it contains only one word: everything.

How many times have we been told to find our passions? To chase our hearts’ desires? It’s a cornerstone of an American upbringing. Follow your dreams, the kindergarten teacher says. You can be an astronaut. You can be a Hollywood star. You can be the president. You can do whatever you want to do. All you have to do is find what that is.

Every Sunday morning, for as long as I can remember, I’ve accompanied my mother to our local farmers’ market where I am always surrounded by the difficult choices: bright, fuchsia-colored beets or tender, milky-white horse radishes.

It wasn’t until these past several days when I realized how terrible goodbyes are. From our three and half hour “kumbaya” at Laguna Beach to the momentous senior sleepover Tuesday night, it’s difficult to imagine everyone scattered around the country in just a matter of weeks or months.

For the past four years, I’ve been fortunate to befriend such brilliant and highly motivated classmates, and as I reminisce about our wonderful high school experience, I am astounded at how much we’ve changed in so little time. As we now regularly discuss life ambitions, graduate school, and everything that college-bound freshmen can dream of pursuing, I realized that for all the farewells that we will be saying in these upcoming months, parting the high school chapter of our lives will be our one true goodbye.

Picture this: you are in a library studying for that huge English test you have on Monday. You turn to the left and you see a stylish 20-something-year-old female furiously typing away on her Smartphone. You turn to the right and there behold, another young adult bopping away to his music, grinning as he surfs the web. You finally turn to the old lady closest to you. You look over her shoulder and watch as she slowly updates her Facebook status.

When an exam is administered, it serves two purposes: to test how well the students understand the material, and to show whether they can apply that information, not simply regurgitate it.

Or at least, that’s what I thought tests were for. I always believed that students’ scores on tests reflected their understanding of the chapter or unit, along with the effort they invested in preparing for the assessment.

Without looking, you pull the zipper and reach into your backpack for your wallet. Odd. It does not seem to be there, but you recall placing the wallet there this morning. Your heart starts racing and you begin to panic while rummaging through the backpack. It’s gone.

The very thought of even thinking about doing this vile act—let alone actually going through with it—disgusts
me.

At the Upper School, we have established trust in our community to place our backpacks, laptops, or athletic bags wherever we please, without worry that someone would steal from it. However, this community trust has been brought into question because of the recent wallet thefts that have occurred.

Cen—ship. Recently, the issue of censorship has been brought to the forefront of news because the new edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by New South Publishing replaces the “n -word” with the word “slave,” among other modifications.