Our Time 1998

R E F L E C T I O N S "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way." A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens Senior year. . . we waited so long for this year to come, and now it's finally here. Yet as I write this the first week of October, most of us have not had the chance to truly celebrate our long-awaited turn at being the top of the pre-college hill. We ' ve been so busy trying to prep for our lives after senior-dom that we haven't had the opportunity to sit back and enjoy ourselves in the present. But hey, how many of us are already writing up those huge lists of Things To Do for Second Semester? Knowi ng the class of '98, we ' ll probably fulfill most of these obligations to ourselves. So we ' re flipping though our yearbooks, it's the end of senior year. We ' ve gotten through the "worst of times," and having the "winter of despair," and hopefully we ' re in the "Season of Light" and having the "best of times." We ' ve made it. We ' re done with college apps, having to go to check, rushing to finish problem sets or thinking logs the day of, party lining, rushing for standardized testing registrations, access cards, study hours, quad wars, huge crowds socializing at 9:30 PM, work service, confusing acronyms, birthday interviews, hell weeks, wing- bonding, signing out (or not), Eagle, crushing the underclassmen during Homecomi ng Week . . . But no matter how much we ' ve shared these past three years together, we need to get away. We need to move on, meet new people, find out how the growing up we did at IMSA will affect our lives in the real world. You ever notice how the seniors never cry during graduation? They ' re always so happy, so proud. On May 30, 1998, the beaming people in the caps and gowns will be us. It's amazing, isn't it, how time crawls in the present but flies in retrospect. This place is a paradox. We love it for what we have learned, but we hate it for what we have lost in order to learn. We ' ve had the best mo– ments of our lives here, yet we ' ve never gone through pain or frustration, like we have here. Such is high school, but especially IMSA, where we make new homes for ourselves yearly, where we learn both how to depend on others and how to let go of them. We thank but inwardly curse each other for the memories. They make it hard to say good-bye, don't they? And thus another chapter of our lives is finished. We go our separate ways, promising to keep in touch. Good luck to you all, and I hope that we all find our different niches in this world. —Jen Wang, Student Council President Semcviss V 67