Tara+S

My High School Years
Entering high school as a freshman, I was pretty quiet and shy, always had my nose in a book, and I had a lot of pent-up anger. I had a small group of friends, and as time went on, I made some more. I still didn’t really know how I fit in with the grand scheme of things, though. It wasn’t until I decided to tryout for the school’s gymnastics team that I felt that I fit-in in any way. I wasn’t very good at first compared to the older, more experienced girls, but I worked hard and began to improve. For my first season on a varsity team, I did relatively well, competing on beam at almost every meet. We won our conference meet that year, which was awesome, too. I had been doing gymnastics for four years already, but it wasn’t until I joined the high school team that I realized how much I really liked the sport. Freshman year was also when I began writing a novel for the graduation project. At first, it wasn’t much of anything, but when I started working with my mentor, I began to develop a better storyline and started working on it all the time. Sophomore year was about the same as freshman year, only a little rougher because my parents were in the process of getting divorced. I started focusing more on my school work, my writing, and gymnastics, trying to manage my aggression productively. I started babysitting for a family almost every weekend that year, too, so I wasn’t home much, and I preferred it that way. I started hanging out with a different group of friends that year, although I still hung-out with the old group, just less often than before. Sophomore year was also the year that I started taking dance class and French classes at school, both of which I found I really enjoyed. That summer, I went on a trip to Texas with my best friend, which was really fun. After driving back for two days across the deep south, I returned home and then drove up to New York the very next day. It was a fun but exhausting summer. Junior year I was really focused on school work, what with AP classes and all. When I wasn’t working on a mountain of homework, I was either at gymnastics, writing my novel, or trying to find some time to hangout with my friends. I was very busy, but I felt a lot happier that year than I had the two previous years. After school let out, I stayed with my cousins in New York for two months. I worked on my AP summer assignments and worked at their restaurant. As soon as I came home in August, I went job and car hunting. I ended up buying a car and getting hired at Kohl’s, where I have unfortunately been working ever since. Senior year has probably been the best year of high school. I was co-captain of the gymnastics team, which was a lot of responsibility, but also really fun. I was also accepted into the Nation Honors Society for Dance. I have finished writing my novel, and am planning on submitting it to publishers over the summer. I also recently applied to a foreign exchange program to France, and was accepted. I’ll be going to France for a few weeks over the summer, and I am super excited. I’m going to UNC Wilmington next year, and I am really looking forward to getting out of Green Hope. It’s been fun, I guess, and I’ve really changed since I started going here, but I’m ready to move on.