High School Graduation

So I went to one of my siblings' high school graduation today. Thank goodness this is my last one. Everytime I go to one of these I am overcome with weird emotion. First, it reminds me of the sick social experiment known as high school. All the ill will I had toward my experience here cones back. I look at the kids walking by and you see that nothing's changed except the faces. You see the hot popular girls, the popular jocks, the nerds, the artsy types, etc. I suddenly have these traumatic memories of walking down these halls, watching the lives proceed of those I envied. I was never really an outcast, but I was by no means in the in crowd. I just was kind there, taking up space. There are many days when I wish I had a time machine and try to go back and conquer high school. Like hitting the reset button, I would keep starting over until I became a cool kid, spliced that the old me would envy.

Another thing is that this stuff makes me feel ancient. You see all these kids finishing high school and I've been removed 7 years. I feel like these kids have an eternity to go before they reach thus point in my life.

These kids are so young and naive, especially those without much older siblings. The speeches invariably all talk about the great accomplishment of graduating high school and the extraordinary things that lie ahead. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. First, graduating high school is NOT a big accomplishment at all. You have to get at the very least one four year degree to go before getting a respectable job, and most people have to get numerous degrees. Secondly, the whole idea of everyone doing something great is laughable. Most if not all are going to eventually be thrust into the rat race in 5 years, stuck in an office cube and living a very ordinary life. But its not that big of a deal, these kids will learn soon enough.


One last thing. Looking at some of the people who graduated my year (thank you facebook), I find no direct correlation between status in high school and status as a young adult. I was always told that the cool popular kids end up working for the nerdy ones. This has turned out to be true in some cases, but definitely does not work as a theory. Some popular kids become hot shots on wall street, others become security guards at my school. Btw the person I am referring to is working at the graduation today, man it must be super weird for him, especially today. As for the nerds, some become less socially awkward, and combine their newfound social skill and brains to get kick ass jobs and maybe some leadership positions in otherwise nerdy industries like computer science. Others remain nerds and will go on to do something nerdy and marry an ugly girl. Some hot girls will become not so attractive later on, while others continue to be the girl you drool over at a bar.