Today was the day. The day I started one of the most stressful parts of my life, the day that marked the beginning of the thing that would drastically affect my future, the day that was the starting point of the thing that people had talked about for my entire life, the most anticipated day of my life so far. I walked nervously into the place that would be my second home for the next four years with a backpack, lunch, and a whole lot of nervousness. I started the most exciting part of my life that day: high school.  As I walked into the building, I immediately was surrounded by a sea of people who would be around for nine and a half months. People were packed around me trying to find their way around the school. I was very nervous and I was also sweating, not because of the number of people in the hallways but because I was nervous out of my mind. I was anxious that day, not knowing what to expect. What will it be like? Is high school as hard as people say it is? Oh god, did my friends change at all?! My schedule was in my hands as I was looking back and forth to see where my Spanish class was. Honestly, I had no idea where I was, and I was looking for someone to ask where my room was. I started growing even more nervous because I wondered what my teacher would say if I was late to class. I did not think she would care too much, but I wanted to make a good first impression. It is OK, it’s only the first day of school. Yet as the wave of people surrounded me, I tried to thrust my way through. As I tried to make my way through the school, I realized that I should try to find some of my friends. Maybe they know, I thought to myself.

Miraculously, I noticed my friends in the midst of the crowd of the Commons Area. I waved my hand over the crowd, and fortunately, they saw me. I made my way over to them and asked quickly “Where is the G wing?”. My friends said that they did not know. My friend Michael was going to Spanish too, however,  so I stayed with him. Wow. They didn’t change at all. They all seemed fairly normal. I was relieved that they didn’t change. We eventually made it to Spanish class after about 10 minutes. After settling down, the Spanish teacher told us how her class would run. I wasn't too nervous about this class because I did very good in Spanish in middle school.
"Hello, class!,” Mrs. Morel said, "Welcome to Spanish 200." She then proceeded to talk about how her class would work. "For every unit, we do one or two classes of notes. Then, we do three rounds of two class practices. One class for reading and speaking and one class for listening and writing. We then take the tests over the next two class periods. The tests will be based on the MYP grading scale."

I again started to get nervous because her class appeared to be hard because we were going to learn a lot of new vocabulary that I hadn't learned in middle school.  She taught differently than my middle school Spanish teacher, and I prayed that I could accommodate to her teaching style.

Max, the person who I was sitting next to me, said “Dude, I thought this class was going to be easy”
“Yeah, so did I,” I said.

I wondered how hard the rest of the year would be in this class and all my classes for that matter. I thought to myself, It’s fine man, you’re smart enough to do this. The class ended, and I walked briskly to my next class, Geometry. This is what I predicted to be the most troublesome, stressful class this year, since a lot of other kids were one math course behind, in Algebra 1. I slowly walked into the classroom not knowing what to expect and quickly found a seat to sit in next to my friends. The teacher came into the classroom, and I was ready to hear how hard and stressful the year would be.

"Hello, class. My name is Mrs. Briskey," said Mrs. Briskey, "For the next few 2 months, we will be focusing on angles and reviewing a lot of the things you learned last year in Algebra 1”

What! Review! Angles! This is so easy! I can do this in my sleep! I breathed a sigh of relief as I relaxed in my chair as I realized that school wasn’t going to be too bad after all. I can’t believe I was even nervous. I’ll be fine this year.

I sauntered out of school feeling good that day, content in believing that high school was not as hard as it seemed. I had a range of mixed emotions: excited about my classes, nostalgic about middle school, and many others. I realized one thing that day: Life is one challenge after another, but it’s all about the miracles that you get along the way that makes life worth living.