Of Meltdowns & Makeups

• Kiandra Mommers, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2015

If someone asked me what was the most important thing people believed in in high school was, I'd say reputation. Whether your talking about teachers, principles, coordinators or students, the most important thing is how they perceive you. I'm not saying that you need to care how they see you but how you survive in high school is always determined by what people think of you, there is no two ways about it.

In high school, there is absolutely no doubt that you will be judged. Whether it's for your looks, weight, personality or even the way you speak, students do not take differences lightly. But it's not like you can really say that it's unfair, because we all do it, maybe unintentionally but we all seem to pick and choose who we associate with, either negatively or positively, just by how you see someone to be. I think it's worse at high schools with uniforms and strict rules, because they continue to abide by these ridiculous rules like; no unnatural hair colours, no piercings and complete school uniform. This makes people at our school more likely to be judged on the fact that when you all dress and basically look the same, it's easier to pick up on such small differences.

They say that you can never really trust anyone, that at the end of the day they will only leave you. And in high school, that is very much the case. Of course there are always exceptions but mostly, you will be thrown under the bus if you even set a foot out of line, especially when it comes to female friendships. The girls at this school will do almost anything to get what they want, I've seen fights break out over it. It's really quite pathetic to see people selling their supposed friends out, we live in a world where verbal communication is lacking and were just willing to give up our friends over petty temporary things. The saying "you never know what you have until it's gone" is exactly right. These people backstab and sell each other out and then lose one of the only decent friends they have and when they realise, it's too late and they're stuck making petty Facebook statuses. Nothing lasts forever, so why should we waste our time hurting the people we care about, it's just pathetic.

At the end of the day we will all do what we have to in order to survive high school, it won't matter if you're the nicest or the meanest person at school. You will either be loved or hated and neither are great options nor are they easy things to deal with but, people will only see you how they want to see you because nobody likes their power or control to be threatened.

Highschool can be tough, but although it has it's ups and downs, the six years are so worth it.