What do I want to take away from high school? A better question is what do I want to leave at high school. I could easily tell you about how I want to take away an excellent education and lovely memories, but the hard part is letting people know the crap I have had to deal with and how I am going to have to go into the wide, scary world feeling grossly underprepared. The day I graduate from this place I do not want to come back until I have every little memory of ridiculous behavior erased my mind. I will drive out of this parking lot wearing the red gown and the stupid little graduation cap, and the many bobby pins in my hair will scrape my scalp. The pain from those pins will symbolize the crappy future I expect, but they will be preferable to the biting words, the miscommunications, and the sarcastic ignorance that I had to cope with for four years. Freshman year was a horror movie in the daytime. Sophomore year was I in a war, and the comrades I depended on turning traitor and abandoning me. Junior year was adjusting to what I was expected to be freshman year, complete with the class clown package. And last but not least, I have senior year where I am again expected to have feelings; sad feelings of losing friends that I never had. At this school I am leaving behind the essays in which the only thing colorful is the language I delete from them after a night of rampant frustration. The days get longer and longer. My frustration with the “radioactive decay” of the music program empowers me to push forward and let myself dare dream of college band. The only thing I am taking from this school is “lemme the heck outta here”. And while that force is not the most positive one, I am hoping, as I never let myself do, that it is strong enough to push me out of these doors and never look back.