I never thought I would actually graduate from High School. I thought it was going to become my own personal “Groundhog Day.” And in less than four months I will be going to Dallas Baptist University for Communications. There are so many thoughts and feelings surrounding this weird transition period in my life.

There are practically no words I use to describe my time at Prosper High School, but if I could the only word I could use is Interesting. From going to Grand National finals twice, to discovering my love for podcasting, it has been a crazy four years.

My freshman year I was the most nervous because I hadn’t been to school since winter of the previous year. I was new to Prosper and knew nobody, but the first experience I had with this school was The Mighty Eagle Marching Band. During summer band camp, I met some friends who I still keep up with and talk to. Then, when school started, it was a definite challenge, having to do marching band along with keeping up with my classes. Marching Band was probably one of my favorite things about high school. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to all of the shows I’ve been in over these last four years, and the only thing I can do is smile because of how amazing it’s been. The four shows I was a part of were “Smile” for my freshman year, “Sit Down Stand Up” for my sophomore year, “Deep In The Heart of Texas” for my junior year, and for my senior year it was “Out of The Box.” During my sophomore and senior year, I got to travel to Indianapolis to compete at Grand Nationals.

Then, came Digital Media my sophomore year, and that helped me ultimately discover my love for podcasting and production as a whole. I technically joined ENO my junior year as Podcast Director, but I published my first podcast ever, “Memory Space,” back in April of the previous school year. I still do this podcast and have made 14 total episodes where I talked to many different people about games such as Pokémon, Legend of Zelda, Lego games, Skylanders, and more. I have also managed and edited many other podcasts such as The Game Room, Street Legal, and Drive. I have thoroughly enjoyed making the podcast side of ENO more active than ever. I hope to see someone keep all of the podcasts alive and around for many more seasons.

But all of this wasn’t without its fair share of challenges and hardships. I will admit throughout my four years as a student, I haven’t been the best. But because of my massive habit to procrastinate, I learned a couple of things. First, I can’t sit down in a quiet place to study because I get too off task, and I will completely forget what I need to do. Secondly, I work best under what I call “Super Crunch Time,” where my mind takes the really stressful time and makes it into some of my most productive times. I really strive under stress (or I crash and burn, which has happened once or twice) Thirdly and lastly, I can’t write normally. What I mean by “normally” is that I can’t just sit down and start writing, but I need something to set off my mind like a spark to gunpowder. But when I get that spark, I can write a lot because one idea will lead to the next one. There have been times that I could write normally, but those were so few and not great.

For the past couple of months, all I could think about is leaving because to be honest, I just want to get out of here. Big surprise, the senior wants to graduate. I’m just really excited for the summer and college. I get to work as a counselor at Skylark this summer. At DBU, I’m going to major in Communications and while touring DBU, I got to speak to the dean of communications. He talked about all of the things that my major gets to do, and he said that there was a room that could be turned into a green screen room, which sounds amazing to me.

So did I like high school? Yes, but there were a lot of bumps on the way. But it’s just like off-roading. If you want to get to the end and see something beautiful, there are going to be a lot of bumps and obstacles. But the view at the end is worth all of it.