ACADEMY GRADUATE RECALLS CHALLENGES AND MISSES FRIENDS
Excitement - relief - a big sigh.
A few tears.
My high school career is over.
I've always wanted to attend a boarding school, so when the opportunity came to attend the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities, I was more than ready to go. The academy is a residential high school for gifted and talented juniors and seniors, funded by the state of Indiana.
The class of 1993 started out with approximately 156 students, and only 112 remained to graduate. Those who left had different reasons for doing so. Some couldn't or wouldn't deal with the stress and the workload. Others didn't like living away from home. But all of these obstacles and challenges brought the rest of the class closer together.
We leaned on one another when the going got tough. Friends encouraged friends to do the work and stick with it. And we all had complaining and nagging sessions on a regular basis to vent our frustrations.
Missing my friends
The one thing that I miss most about the academy right now is my friends. They were always there, day and night. School was over at 4 p.m., but we never left. The academy was our home during the school year.
The fact that we were together a lot created a family atmosphere. There were no cliques or groups; everyone knew one another. I had a group of close friends whom I spent most of my time with, yet if I needed a friend or someone to accompany me somewhere, I could ask just about anyone.
If I had a problem with calculus late at night, I could go downstairs to see my teacher in his office. If he wasn't there, I could call up Matt the math wizard. Within minutes I would be enlightened and my problem would be solved.
If I was feeling down in the middle of the night, I wouldn't have to wander the halls for long to find a friend who was awake to give me a shoulder to lean on and to cheer me up. Whenever I needed a study break, all I had to do was go downstairs to the lounge, and any number of my peers would be ready to go to a movie, play a game of table tennis or pool or just relax for a while.
The academy wasn't all fun and games. There was work to be done every day - about five hours' worth if I wanted to keep my grades up. Every once in a while an all-nighter was in order to make up for the procrastinating I did earlier.
We also had to do 50 hours of work service each semester, and 50 hours of community work for the two years that we spent at the academy. I completed my community service working for Children's Express in the summer.
At the academy, just as in any other place, work has a way of piling up, bringing frustration and stress. Privacy is an unknown word at the academy. I adjusted to that pretty quickly, even though I was an only child.
For the memories
But in the end it was all worth it. I'd do it all over again if I had to, for the memories. . . .
Like the night my friends and I crawled across the roof to the guys' side - and the extra week of winter break we got for it. Or gathering in our counselor's living room promptly at 3 o'clock every day to catch the latest episode of General Hospital. Or the May term on the East Coast, driving nearly 24 hours with 12 people and all their backpacking gear in a 15-passenger van listening to John Denver songs (they were the drivers' choice).
And finally graduation - short and sweet. It's all over - two years of hard work and good times stuffed into my senior memory book, which won't even close.
The 112 who were left have now graduated, never to be together again. Except in our memories.