Sorry, guys! I had meant to post earlier during the break, but got tied up because of holiday matters... On the bright side, social media has told me that most of you seem to be having a great winter break! Unfortunately, it went by so fast, it feels almost like it never happened. But let me tell you, 2016 has honestly been quite a year. There's been a lot of stuff going on, like the recent deaths of well-known people, the presidential election (don't get me started on that one), the good music that was introduced this year, and I'm sure there's a lot more. Writing this blog post is one of the first things I'm doing in 2017, and as this'll be the year that I turn 16 (on February 9), I'm sure there'll be a LOT more interesting things to come this year. We'll have to see what happens, though!
Now a bit about the Horizons family... Let me just start by saying that if you want to be happy at Horizons, you HAVE to make LOTS of friends. Not just a few friends, but a lot of friends, preferably from different grades. I just recently started interacting with some freshman (no, they're not boys), and it started by us saying "hi" to each other in the hallways. Believe it or not, during finals week, we eventually found ourselves in a study room, and that's where we really got to become well-known friends. Actually, I now consider those people my best friends. Honestly, I'm now super glad that I did that before the break began, because guess what? On the last day before break, I found out that TWO of my sophomore best friends are leaving CHECHS (one got kicked out, and one dropped out), and since I have known those two best friends for a while, it made me really sad. They really made a huge difference in what happens in our classrooms.
As soon as I found that fact out, I figured that this might be the last time I will ever see them again in person unless they do something about it... so I, by default, decided to spend my last few hours with those two. I wasn't told to leave, so I knew they wanted me there (after all, we're still friends!). We walk to the winter celebration roundup, and watched quite a few interesting things happen onstage. (We even moved away to a different spot as soon as a LARGE group of teenage freshman get seated next to us.) I became a little uneasy, but thankfully, the friend group I was following did the same thing I wanted to do, and that was move to a different spot. As I was doing that, one of the teenage boys sitting right next to me (note: I said no words to him whatsoever) said "Aw, I was just getting to know you!" Since I knew my best friends were leaving, it gave me an immediate excuse to say to him, and I believe that was something like "I need to sit with some of my best friends who are leaving us."
Once winter celebration ended, we headed back to our advisory classroom, and that's where we said our final words in person to our best friends. I can't count the number of times I stressed to them "I am legitimately going to miss you two" and "It won't ever be the same without you guys!", because I feel like I said it quite a few times. I even told them that if they need any kind of support at all, or if they just want to talk to me, they know where to find me on social media. Nonetheless, some of us played a few rounds of hangman, and they were Christmas-themed. Man, was that a blast. We even had a final small talk with our teacher, because I know the two of them will deeply miss him.
When advisory finally ended, I knew it was time for the big moment. I had about 25 more minutes to be with them before I had to go to the buses, so I followed them to the Student Center and told one of them "Do whatever you want to do with me now, as you might not be able to do that later!" Ten minutes in, one of them says she's leaving, and thus the sadness begins. The final words are said. After all of that, she then leaves. But hey, I got about 12-15 minutes to spend with this other best friend before she leaves us, so I do that. She's now saying her final goodbyes to anyone she likes as a friend, with me following her (because I'm such a nice friend.) I knew she was totally going to need my support, as she was in my advisory class, and since she won't have anything electronic to communicate with (not even her school laptop, as that's a sad part of changing schools, plus her phone was taken quite a while ago), she'll be almost entirely disconnected from the media for about two weeks.
After finding nobody else she wanted to say a final goodbye to, the two of us head back to our advisory and geometry classroom, and we have a good final goodbye talk there. Even the teacher totally agrees that it won't be the same without her. My best friend told me how she does the entire "annoy the teacher the friendly way" deal, and tells me I should probably do it, as that's how the entire classroom gets engaged the fun way in the first place. I still don't think it'll work out the same way without the entire group there, though, as we all had the power to do it together, with each one of us having our OWN special ability, and trying to take over a different one is an entirely different story. I still think it'll be interesting to see how these future classroom meetings play out, though. But for now, sadness arises as I realize that I'm finally having to leave my best friend, as if I'm not on the bus in the next few minutes, I'm stuck here until I get picked up. Yes, I was very sad that I had to leave her, and that it wasn't the other way around... but things had to be how they had to be, and that really hurt my heart for a few seconds. How I didn't cry during any part of this, I don't know.
Even though I literally just wrote a sad story, my point is that friends at an early college high school like Clear Horizons probably won't last forever, so it's probably wise to makes lots of friends and several best friends, preferably in several different grade levels. That way, if someone gets kicked out, or if they dropped out (like in my case, two best friends had gotten kicked/dropped out), you can still interact with more friends, and also have some best friends! That way, you don't have to be an entirely sad sack. I also want to tell you that this applies to administrative staff members as well, such as your principal, assistant principal, teachers, bus drivers, etc. I wanted to say that additional point because on my Horizons bus route (route 119), we got a different bus driver to replace our driver (who is now a substitute bus driver). The only reason that was sad for the riders riding that bus was because our students loved that bus driver. She was very calm, very lenient, drove this same route for 9 years, I managed to make good friends with her, and she drove quite a nice bus (it was a 2010 Thomas C2). Now, we have a bus driver who says next to nothing, and now the riders feel a bit indifferent about this bus driver. On top of all that, her bus is just a normal older bus (a 2005 IC CE powered by a CNG engine). I'm pretty sure the older buses ran on diesel the first few years they were running, because their odometer readings are a little low to have been used on CNG their entire lifetime (this year, I've seen them anywhere from about 48,000-73,000 miles). Either way, both buses have A/C, but the older bus doesn't have as good A/C as the newer ones. Go figure.
I know I just wrote quite a lot about various topics, but 2016 has been such a wild year! I also wanted to get some of these stories off of my mind and hopefully be able to start a fresh 2017 having done what I've been wanting to do forever, and that is to write this blog post. With that being said, I'm going to go ahead any say that's all for now. I hope you can forgive me in being late writing my own blog posts, and I hope you have a great and wonderful 2017!
See some of y'all on Tuesday!
