Secondary school just happens to intersect with the five or six years that we're most prone to change: Hormones, peer pressure, finding ourselves, and all the other horrors described to us in SPHE. So, of course there are cringe-inducing versions of ourselves left in the past when we decide to look back. I'm glad for every awkward phase, awful opinion, and stupid mistake I've made in my scholastic career, just because I've learned, I've grown, and I'll never have to deal with being that person again, even while I'm still learning and trying to be the best model of myself that I can manage. There'll be countless versions of us left behind in the school when we leave that one last time, and many more versions ahead of us as we try to make it in the world. The most we can hope for (beyond Bishop coming up in the poetry this year) is that we can consider ourselves happy with the person we've become. There's more to life than the points we get in August, in the end.
-C.M.