High school, supposedly claimed by others that it is the best time of your life, however what I discovered in the halls of Elkhart Memorial High School was a complete nightmare and it all started freshman year.

Walking into school was already terrifying because as I was walking into the building, two junior boys who were about 6 feet tall and were dressed like the typical thug, were looming behind me and staring me down. “Hey look at that scrawny looking freshman, I can’t wait to beat the s@#! out of him on freshman beat up week,” said one of the thugs. I was frozen in fear for about five seconds and then ran to my locker.

My locker was like base when you’re playing tag, no one bothered me when I was there. It was my safe zone. Most of my classes weren’t bad, I really liked my algebra and English class. However biology was a different story. We had this kid in class that was pretty much a rebel. One day we were taking notes and the little rebel asked to go to the restroom, but the teacher said no because he didn’t want him to miss out on notes. However the rebel took it upon himself to pee in the trash can. Finally the bell rang and it was time to go to lunch. I was praying that the lunch was going to be good, however that wasn’t the case. The food wasn’t even cooked. They just put it into the microwave for a couple minutes and decided to call this food and the milk was past the expiration date. Disgusted at the food, I went to the bathroom only to encounter the weirdest/craziest person I’ve met in my entire life.
While I was going to the bathroom a junior came in talking to himself and yelled out that he was a vampire. Then he went behind me asking if he could suck my blood. This was only the first day of school, and I hated this school already. As soon as I ran out of the restroom from the lunatic, there was a fight between a cop and a student. Everyone at lunch surrounded the area, just to see the fight.

The first day of high school was just a sign, a sign telling me that the next three years were going to get much worse. As time flew by in high school, it was soon that freshmen beat up week was drawing near. This week was any freshmen’s nightmare, which I was planning to counter this week. Luckily I was able to befriend a few seniors and they had my back all through freshman year, however, I still had to see other freshmen get pulled into the bathrooms by the upperclassmen and were get beat up. It was a terrifying experience that I had the great  fortune of not being a part of it. Not only was this week disgusting, but during lunch my friend, who was a senior helped the camera lady, and when she was going to ask the camera lady something, she caught her watching two teen couples doing “the nasty” in the hallway. They continued to do so for the next ten minutes. With the end of the school year drawing near, it was very bitter-sweet. On one hand I have three years left of school and the other hand I lose some friends that are actually mature.

Coming back for sophomore year was a little relief because I didn’t have to worry about the upperclassmen jumping me. However, I did miss my senior friends. Anyways Taekwondo season ended for the most part, so I thought I need to try a sport that would build more muscle and keep my endurance up, so I joined the swim team. I really enjoyed it to the point where I kind of retired from Tae Kwon Do and moved on to swimming. However, though swimming was fun, the team was weird. We had a team bonding, which is when the team gets to hang out and bond. It was fun until they brought in a ouji board and me being a christian didn’t want to partake in this, so I left the room as soon as they unlocked it.While I was in the other room I heard them chanting. With all that said these people were the weirdest people I’ve ever met. Another day there were twice as many fights, and three gun threats where 80% of the student body were absent. Going into one of my classrooms we had a kid during class that decided it would be a good idea to watch adult films during class, as soon as he got caught the teacher took his phone and told him to go to the bathroom to clean up, as soon as he came back he had poop all over his hand and smeared it on the walls (by the way this kid goes to this school now.)

If you thought that wasn’t enough just wait until you hear about junior year. First day of school we had nine fights in one day, and I think that might be a school record, not to mention that there were plenty of couples in the hallway that were making babies and in the cafeteria too. Then we had a bomb threat in which, again, 80% percent of the student body were absent. In fact somebody had an app that makes the sound of a bomb, and when they set it off, it was chaos. I tried going into a classroom and the teacher shut the door in my face. A month later, my friends and I were walking to the Career Center and a bus driver was about to run us over because we weren’t walking fast enough. When swim season was about to begin, I decided to join again and I went to team bonding to see if was going to be better, and I was wrong. The team decided to go to Walmart, where they were pulling pranks, making jokes at other people or stalking them. We all separated I was trying to find my brother and then I noticed I haven’t seen anybody in the past fifteen minutes. So I walked out to the parking lot and everyone’s car was gone, and then these pot heads were laughing at me saying they left me. I was furious. I told the pot heads off, went back into Walmart, and waited. After waiting for a few minutes, they came back for me and took me to their next destination which was Holiday Inn. So one of the guys can flip a bulletin board and run out. It was a terrible night. They then proceeded by taking a Santa Claus decoration from some random lawn. After this terrible year, I found out that my mom wanted to transfer. I happily complied.

Senior year is probably the most stressful year, but it’s normal and I wish I could’ve attended this school earlier, because everything at my new school isn’t a complete catastrophe. However I do notice that I talk extremely loud and my ability to study has been lacking this year. I now know that Elkhart Memorial High School just about killed this student!