Most people can hopefully remember their first day in high school; for some it may have been terrifying, being a little squirt in a hallway full of lumberjack beards and cowboy boots you could probably fit your whole body into. For others, it might’ve come far too easy to think that these hallways are already yours, strutting down the center of those tunnels like it’s your debut on the red carpet.
No matter your confidence, there are some unavoidable road bumps in navigating the school day in the beginning of your first year of high school. Whether you’re faced with the issue of finding the bathrooms, finding them randomly locking you out or under severe construction, or get bumped severely off-course in the intersection of imminent danger and violence, there’s going to be some challenges.
For freshman Chance McCalip, the bathrooms really barred him from having a smooth beginning of high school.
“The hardest thing about transferring from the middle school to the high school for me was the shortage of bathrooms,” said McCalip. “The transition probably would’ve been a lot easier if there were more bathrooms.”
Although I truly do understand (and agree) that it’s a mild to severe inconvenience to have certain bathrooms locked, forcing students to trek epic journey’s from the English hallway to find a place to relieve themselves (a necessary basic human function), it could be argued that maybe it’s a good thing we all train our bodies to just freaking hold it every once and a while! Hopefully, instead of inducing quite a messy accident, McCalip can use the bathroom shortage to his advantage, and show that bladder who’s boss!
Freshman Emma Bayer said that the transition was easier than she thought it would be, but struggled a bit with the amount of homework she received, as she wasn’t quite expecting it and was still adjusting to the unreasonable six am wake up times at the start of the day and more rigorous soccer season schedule that sometimes keeps the girls from getting home until 11:00pm, which is an hour and a half past my personal bedtime.
“It definitely would’ve helped me transition if my teacher’s hadn’t given me homework the very first week,” said Bayer. “It’s not too bad, but some time to adjust would’ve been nice.”
Freshman Zach Parkinson seconded this, despite otherwise really enjoying the freedom of the high school and opportunities it gives you.
“I get so much English homework,” said Parkinson. “It takes all night to do.”
On a positive note, he commented on how nice everyone is, and all the opportunities there are to make new friends! Not sure what happened to hazing the freshman, but perhaps Parkinson is just too cool to be a victim of such discrimination. Props to him!
Hopefully, now that we’re a couple weeks into the 2023-2024 school year, McCalip has trained his bladder and Parkinson has been teased by an upperclassman or two. With any luck, the rest of the freshman class has had sailing as smooth as these three.
If you’re a freshman, still struggling to find your way from bathroom to bathroom, don’t be afraid to ask around, whether that be to an upperclassman, teacher, or Zach Parkinson! Everyone was a freshman once and understands how intimidating it can be, and would be more than happy to do whatever they can do to enable you to have the most fun freshman year ever! Good luck to you all!
