By Jasmine Hassan
Stepping foot back onto campus grounds would have felt exhilarating during the years leading up to this one – the nervous anticipation, giddy excitement, and newfound motivation forms one giant homogeneous blob – yet, for a senior, the final semester feels undeniably different.
“Where did all the time go?” Nicole Khor (12) sighed, sluggishly grabbing the same pink backpack she has had her entire high school career.
It almost feels as if just yesterday Christopher Jang (12) was having the time of his youthful elementary life, devouring vanilla soft serve, and strutting in his oversized cowboy hat. More than a decade later, he carefully evaluates the complex numbers provided by his Calculus class, a mathematical language most seniors as underclassmen used to find completely foreign.
Like Chris and Nicole, this semester conjures up a sentimental confluence of emotions, triggering reminiscence in many of us. Ten years ago, “ten years” would have sounded like forever. Ten years later, it has frankly felt like the blink of an eye.
In our late middle school and early high school years, the seniors were the big kids, the people we would admire, but were intimidated by at the same time. Yet, being a senior now feels surreal, and weirdly, the exact same as it did just four years ago.
“It doesn’t even feel like I’m a senior,” says Joycelyn Fung (12), who joined Dalat at the beginning of seventh grade, an overwhelming six years ago. Now, she carefully constructs unique and coherent supplemental essays for her looming college applications.
After concluding my last first day of the semester, I stumbled upon an internet image that fully encapsulated what it felt like to be in the final year of high school – a picture of a melting clock. It represented the merciless speed of time, and frankly, how baffled I was at the amount of precious seconds, minutes, and hours I and many others obliviously endured to mould us into who we are today.
Though it should be strikingly obvious (and a little cliché), every second counts. Yet, sometimes I forget that it will not be long before I, dressed in my blue graduation cape and academic mortarboard, strut down the aisle, alongside the village of people whom I was lucky enough to grow up with, one last time. We come from all walks of life, and have yet to uncover what the future holds – an uncertainty that tends to stir fear in high school seniors.
Not only has the dreaded second-semester-senioritis kicked in, but the bittersweet epiphany of leaving this island in merely 21 weeks has taken a toll on the entire senior class, a constant numerical reminder that time is truly of the essence.
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