cry, laugh, smile, scream.

The day before I started high school, I was a total wreck.

I was totally convinced that the seniors were all going to hate me and shove me into lockers, I was going to get lost in the vast, complicated and total nonsensically numbered network of hallways, I'd fail all my classes, never see my friends, fall down the stairs, contract mono from the water fountains and be force-fed illegal adult beverages the moment a teacher wasn't looking.

Sadly, due to my horrible habit of paranoia, that's only a slight exaggeration.

My actual first day of high school went something like this: I woke up too early, adjusted my outfit aproximately seven hundred times, refused breakfast due to the knot of nerves in my stomach, got dropped off at my friend's house by my chuckling, lord-its-just-high-school-calm-down-would-you father, and walked to school.

Shockingly enough, no upperclassmen threatened my life, I didn't fall, contract diseases or sample any suspiscious liquids and only got lost once.

Since then, my high school experience has improved drastically. I can navigate the still-nonsensically numbered hallways and walk up four flights in less than three minutes. I know the lunch schedule by heart and made Honor Roll for the first quarter. It is nowhere near as scary or dangerous as all the movies make it out to be. It's just school. It's just kids.

Arguably the most important aspect of high school, however, is social interaction. It is not exactly overblown by the media--more like those movies don't actually capture what teenage life is like, because the directors and writers and producers have all grown up and forgotten.

The adult population at large has forgotten what it was like to be in high school, forgotten that doing absolutely nothing can be crazy fun, that sleep deprivation is simply a fact of life, that sweatpants are gifts from God, that teenagers practically own Dunkin' Donuts, that friends are just as necessary to existence as air, that it's terrifying to talk to the person you like, that school can be stressful enough to make you cry, that teenagers live to eat and are nearly always hungry, that snow can be the cause of a school-wide celebration.

The movies have all forgotten all this, and focus on the negative traits of high school, drawing them out to get laughs. I'm not denying it--we're clique-y, whiny, profane, selfish, sarcastic and cutthroat.

But then again, aren't adults clique-y, whiny, profane, selfish, sarcastic and cutthroat too?

Adults also say we're overemotional...frankly, I take it as a compliment. I'd rather feel deeply and passionately then brush everything off casually with a shrug. We're humans. We have emotions. Might as well put those emotions to use.

High school will make you smile, cry, laugh and scream. And sometimes it'll make you do all four at once. I guess that's why some say it's the "glory days" and some say it's the four worst years we must endure in our lifetime. Whichever it is for me, I'm hoping my years at high school will challenge me to be a better person, because c'mon, we all need some characterisc improvement.