Freedom

 

            “You may now enter the gym”. The dreaded words that mean that your last half hour of cramming and trying to recall every last little formula, vocabulary word and historian you’ve learned about over the last 5 months into your already overloaded brain which has pushed past all of its capabilities through the last week. As you enter the unembellished room where the faint smell of B.O. and failure is predominant, your limbs start to go numb and you feel the gym floor start shaking as you collapse into your seat in exhaustion and defeat. While they begin explaining all of the rules that you have heard 10 too many times for the exam you have been dreading for the last 10 days, you let out a sigh while that booklet, that bundle of information that seems so top secret, sits there and taunts you as if its saying "you're mine". "Begin". Your heart starts pounding, every limb in your body begins to tremble at an 8.5 on the Richter Scale. You finally muster up the courage to open up the booklet and as you study the first question, stumbling upon the words, you make an astonishing discovery. You might actually know the answer. Time was moving by at light speed and when you look up at the clock for the first time, you are dismayed to learn that the time that you felt was moving like the turtle, had in fact actually been more like the hare. "if you are finished you may now exit the Gym". You watched as everyone around you started to get up and leave. All at once, a new form of anxiety hit you like a brick wall. As you turn to the last page, you are relieved to find that it was closer than you thought. You read it over and panic. That one last question. How could one teacher be so cruel as to put that one last question on there. Its not like you had enough to worry about and now you have this one last question to answer. Reading through the options, you finally circle C because "when in doubt, pick C". As you walk out of the Gym, you turn back to see that little booklet filled with  multiple choice questions and all of your deepest thoughts, with a few tear stains on them, almost haunting you with a smug little grin. Walking out of the Gym, it finally sets in; From all the cramming, sighing, frustration, from all of the scents you first smelt to the sound of nothingness with only the buzzing of the fans to distract you and the speeding of the clock. You finally feel it as you walk out the front doors to the school for the last time only to never return as you start your new life. Freedom.

8 Grades of Life

 

            If you fail grade 12, you fail at the rest of your life, true or false? Although many would claim this statement to be true, it’s actually a trick question, just like the harsh reality that is grade 12. We are conned into believing that our final year will be all pleasant and lively when realistically it is the sheer thought that a break, whether it be Christmas break, summer break or even spring break, is a mere two and a half months away that pulls us through our colossal misery and the pressures of our final year. You are forced to be ranked on your memorization skills and your ability to deliver the perfect answer when asked a question as vague as “Choose the best answer”, where they have the audacity to tell you that what your mind told you was the best answer, was wrong. Your head is brimming with thoughts, advice and “suggestions” and then commanded to choose wisely, when in the final days that you are wandering though the now barren halls of the establishment you spent most of the last 4 years of your life, you find yourself bypassing the petty questions of “are my grades high enough” or “will I be accepted into the university of my dreams” but pondering whether or not you’ve done enough to be remembered. If advice was to be given on how to spend your final year drifting through the common school system, only one piece can be given. Do whatever it takes to create the most action-packed, eventful and memorable final year possible. Don’t let those final 8 grades assigned to your student identification number, define you.

 

Who Defines Me

            In the face of chaos, Caitlyn Spooner is not the type you would find blending in as just another face in the crowd. As the people around her begin to lose hope in what seemed like a lost cause to begin with, you will find her back at the starting line ready to restart and try a different approach.   With her dedication and tough-mindedness, Caitlyn is said to be very much like a modern day