EMBRACE YOUR WEIRDNESS

Let’s face it, high school is challenging. Not so much the lessons,

which tend to be pretty simple. The most difficult aspect of high

school is negotiating the norms and expectations of an

opinionated adolescent microsociety, and doing everything

possible, including tremendous leaps of energy and

inventiveness, to avoid doing or doing anything that would earn

the unshakeable label of being odd. Being labeled as unusual in

high school is a death sentence. So most people try to appear

like everyone else. However, in the end, we are all hiding.

We're still figuring out who we are and where we fit on the social

interaction spectrum. Mistakes are unavoidable, but they should

be committed in secret, away from the limelight of the halls,

lunchroom, or special events. High school students are permitted

to be nervous wrecks, fearful that their own shadow would mock

them if they slip and fall. However, it should have stopped there