MICHAEL BELMONT
Gargoyle senior editor
Posted Monday, May 28, 2007
Opinions

I HAVE LOTS of memories from the last five years, way too many to sift through in a single coherent column. Most of them don't mean much by themselves. It's their cumulative effect that matters.

Take what I am as I walked out the door after school on Thursday, the last day of regular classes for seniors, subtract from that what I was when I walked into the building on the first day of the 2002-03 academic year, and you have the total of my experience as a student at Uni. Call it the “Fundamental Theorem of Life,” if you will (I'm sorry, I couldn't help it).

Physically, the difference amounts to 30 pounds, 2 inches. I've gained a bit of perspective, a little more self-restraint, various skills — of all sorts and to different degrees — and a pretty solid amount of knowledge. I care more about certain things and less about others. My sense of identity is changing.

My last class was an English class. I left it calm and fairly confident of my ability to learn and understand, though aware of my limitations as a student and person.

My first class was an English class. We read a short story, then our teacher, Rosemary Laughlin, pulled out a stack of note cards with everybody's name and began randomly and rapidly calling on people to answer questions that had no simple answers. My classmates sitting next to me both on my right and left were picked, and both faltered. I left it shaken up and shell-shocked.

I still have a lot of growing and learning to do. That's for later.

There are minor things I may have done differently if I had to do it all over again, past events that I wish had gone differently but that had no major effect on my life.

Generally, I'm pretty happy with the last five years, and the things I'm not so happy with don't matter anymore. These days I spend most of my thoughts on how I will apply the lessons I have picked up.

In the future, I will focus on a few pursuits, rather than spread myself over many. I won't spend as much time playing or watching sports — I'm starting to get sick of them.

I'll be much quicker to take advantage of opportunities to learn and enhance myself. Failure won't scare me as much, and I won't pursue success in endeavors that don't gratify me. I'll eat less, sleep more, learn to speak in public, and take time to help others.

I think the teachers and staff at Uni are what make it a good place to go to high school, and I'd like to thank them. I'd like to thank my family too. That's it.

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