Never a winner but never a loser I was always right in the middle with an occasional win here and there. I was always a good student but never all A’s, in everything good. I was a good basketball player but not a great one, I was an okay runner but not fast enough for my liking, and I was an ok violin player but not good enough for stuck up teachers who love protégés. I was Miss 50/50 never Miss 100 at anything. I was always practical and the one who thought that if I was positive about everything then everything would fall into place, but I realized after three years of being thrown into the shark tank called Middle School that that isn’t always the case. You see when you are 11 years old and a very young and positive sixth grader it’s hard to see that as you get older the positive attitude will go away as will some hopes and dreams that you had as fifth grader. Well that’s what I thought was the case but it isn’t. I noticed that after 3 years of Middle School that I didn’t have to be the brave, positive, upbeat one all the time. Sometimes being that person drives friends away and gives you the thought of insecurity and you lose your self-esteem. At 11 you take everything said to you as if it were bullet right through your heart and a shot at your intelligence, but newsflash, that’s life. Middle School is the shark tank that trains you to get let out into the deep blue sea. It isn’t easy and a lot of the times it isn’t fun but its reality and everybody goes through it. Whether you like it or not you’re always the little kid you walked in as but now your more in touch with the world, you know how mean it can be and how nice it can be.
It’s a 50/50 shot that anyone will love Middle School at all times but it’s also a 50/50 shot that everyone will hate something and discover something while there. The shark tank of Middle School is like being bit in the leg by a mosquito and that isn’t fun; you scratch at the bite but you know the harder you scratch the bigger it gets and the longer it takes to go away. Well that isn’t true with Middle School the truth is the less you scratch at teachers and friends the more you find yourself gliding through with no problems that are visible to the outside world. In the real world what’s under the surface is more important but in Middle School it’s the surface that hits people first. Just like a lot of things you don’t have a second chance at a first impression. If you want to be yourself throughout Middle School then you will often find yourself crying on your bed wishing you were someone else, but they are wishing that they were you. You want to have it all the popularity and the best of everything but what about, who you are? Do the clothes and the friends make the person or does the person make the clothes and the friends? The surface is important for those who believe that material things are everything and if that’s the case then you can hang up your skates and call yourself the popular ones right away because labels are all about Middle School, no matter how hard anybody tries to tell you it isn’t, it is. The truth is hard but you have to learn to take it and shark tanks are all about that. So a little tip from an upperclassman lather on the bug spray and buy a bag of fish food because in Middle School you are swimming with the sharks and you will get bit but if you know who you are you’ll know how to deal with it. For those who don’t, see you in High School- as one of many people.