Caitlin+S

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It was August, 2005. I had just escaped/graduated St. Michael Catholic School, and the wonderful world of High School was beckoning. So, with a new wardrobe consisting entirely of white polo shirts and khaki pants, I embarked on my journey of freshman year at Cardinal Gibbons High School. High school was like a whole other world in those first few months. After ‘studying’ Spanish for years, I was more than ready to give Latin a try. I wasn’t sure what I had gotten myself into when Father Doherty would have us spend an hour chanting “sum, es, est, sumus estis sunt,” but I ended up absolutely loving that class. I joined the swim team and I got to compete at the State invitational’s, the coolest part of which was the fact that the whole team managed to get full body fast skin swim suits, so we looked legit. I also tried softball…that didn’t go so well, but I had fun anyway! Sophomore year was a whirlwind for me. I started doing musical theatre, and that’s when I really found my niche. I played Cinderella in Into the Woods that fall, and I was also in Annie that winter. That winter I also learned that I would be transferring schools. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be informed of this, especially because I had just started to feel like I had really found my place at Gibbons. So, with sad goodbyes, I ended Sophomore year and prepared to go to Green Hope High School. The summer before Junior year was truly life changing for me. I participated in a Counselor-In-Training program at Camp Cheerio, a summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains that I went to as a child and one that I still work at during the summers. As a CIT, I learned that the real meaning of responsibility is to be accountable to someone other than myself. There were 17 of us CIT’s, and the friendships we formed are still strong, despite distance and time between us. I was especially happy when I learned that one of the new friends I had made attends Green Hope- That conversation went something like this: “Where do you go to school, Caitlin?” “Well, I went to Cardinal Gibbons, but I’m transferring to Green Hope” “Oh, I go to Green Hope!” “You do?! Oh thank God, now I know somebody at that school!” As amazing as that summer was, I still had to reconcile with the fact that once I came home from camp I would have to go to Green Hope. Again, I was not really looking forward to this. That first day is something I almost wish I could block out. For starters, transitioning from a small, quiet Catholic school to one that was over twice its size and much more chaotic was not exactly the easiest thing to do. I couldn’t find any of my classes because all of the halls look EXACTLY the same, and by the time I did make my way to AP English, I discovered that I had left my summer assignment sitting on the counter at home. That day just kept getting better when I found out that I would have to walk what seemed like an odyssey to make it to French class out in the modular, and I almost got lost again when I had to go to Trailer 12 for Latin class. Once I arrived at what would soon be my favorite class, I felt lost amongst a myriad series of inside jokes that all of the other students were in on, but to me it just seemed like everyone in Latin class really hated Irish people. And I’m Irish. Oh yea, and after school, I missed the bus. That pretty much sums up how junior year went for me. Thankfully, that summer was much more fun. I went back to Camp Cheerio to work as a counselor, and even though I had another whole year of high school ahead of me, I was already looking forward to college. And so I started the final year of my secondary education. It went a whole lot better than Junior year, probably because I had so much to look forward to this year. I got my first car, and it’s the best little hatchback anybody could ever ask for. Its name is Bloo. I traveled outside of the country for the first time and went to Italy over spring break. Once I returned state-side, I thought that perhaps I should start looking at colleges. I went to go visit UNC Asheville, absolutely loved it, and enrolled right when I got home. Well, that's all folks. These past four years have gone by faster than I expected, and although everything didn't go exactly like I expected it to, everything worked out in the end.