Throughout the summer I got an annoying amount of college and senior year questions as, I assume, all other rising seniors did. “Are you excited for senior year?” I was asked roughly one hundred times by mostly adults who couldn’t think of anything more creative to say. My most prevalent feeling was lack of enthusiasm to smatter on more responsibility and stress to my already heavy plate of things in my life. I always added, though, that my senior year was going to be filled with a bunch of fun and excitement. Yet still I couldn’t convince myself to have a great attitude about the upcoming year.
“Are you ready for school to start?” was another very hackneyed question which I heard more and more as I came to the last bittersweet weeks of summer break. I usually hesitated to say yes, mostly because of the large amount of reading I was reminded of every time the questions came up. As the final days of freedom dissipated before my eyes and school was on the verge of commencing, I had an uneasy and unprepared feeling because of my daunting summer reading and my hatred of not meeting deadlines. But like most other deadlines, the first day of school was not going to change; and like most science summer reading books, no one needs to read them anyway.
Before the bell even rang for the first day, I was in a pretty good mood: seeing tons of my buddies who were absent in my life or rarely seen in the past three months, walking around noticing we were now the top dogs of the school (even though my height doesn’t quite show it), and feeling an excited, upbeat vibe that bounced around the student body.
Energy filled the room as my homeroom AP French class assembled. French is like a cult at Ignatius— it’s the smallest of all the languages, so it’s a pretty tight group, and there’s this sort of unity that comes from being one of the few Frenchmen. And this class has quite a bit of French pride. With only about three French classes each year, almost everyone’s had a class together; and this being AP, we all wanted to be in that room. We’re the French all-stars: with the likes of Camden Stacey, Ben Lew, Pete Simcox, Owen Manning, Billy Farr, Jake Brenner, and many more, the class was bubbling with anticipation for a stellar homeroom under the teaching legend Mr. Turner (who’s “pretty damn good” at what he does).
And that animation flowed throughout the day. I exchanged countless smiles, cheerful greetings, daps, bro hugs, and buoyant banter with my classmates and by the end of the day I had this very inflated, optimistic feeling and couldn’t hold back my smile. It probably helped that my class schedule and teacher lineup are stacked with courses like AP lit and Cleaveland history and with favorites like Wimbo and Pasko. But I think it was more than that.
I don’t remember ever being this excited for the first day of school. I don’t know if it was just my imagination, but it seemed like the senior class had this joyful buzz around them. I think it was the extra years we’ve spent together that makes the post summer reunion that much sweeter. It was also the excitement of finally being seniors: having one more year, the future seems so close, no more waiting, this is it. It’s our school, we’re the oldest, we’re the leaders, we have the spotlight, it’s our time.
Walking into the senior lounge I had a little sentimental moment which most seniors seemed to have bypassed. I visibly couldn’t get over the fact that the lounge was ours now. No more looking in from the outside at all the older guys, we are the older guys.
Finally at the end of the day, I came back to my previous realization: senior year will be my most stressful year, filled with AP work, extra curricular overloading, and an overemphasis on working and socializing during the weekend rather than school. I was completely romanticizing senior year; within a few weeks I’ll be back to the sleep deprived, stressed out, back loaded Dominic I’ve gotten to know very well. Thing is I didn’t care, nor do I care now, I’ll ride this senior high as long as it takes me.
