Growing Up and Moving Up

A Eugene middle school student reflects on taking the big step to high school

Kaia Lane
Kaia Lane

As a younger child, I attended three elementary schools: Edison Elementary School, Parker Elementary School and Camas Ridge Community School. I always had to get used to making new friends, getting a new routine and getting used to a new school.

Back in elementary school, I never thought I would be this close to high school. All I was thinking about was when recess was going to be and if I should yell at boys to stop being so annoying. Now I have to think about the next four years of my life until I graduate and possibly go to college.

At my school, Spencer Butte Middle School, teachers have been partially preparing us for high school, but now that we only have about five months left of middle school, they are talking about it more and more. I could say that I can’t wait for high school, but that would be a lie. I am completely nervous and somewhat not prepared to give up my childhood. I also don’t want to give up my easy classes for harder classes where my grades actually matter.

Emotions can be confusing. It’s like wanting to work out, while also thinking about how much you want that red velvet cupcake. These are what my feelings are about entering high school, which is nervousness. I am nervous about a lot of things, but some things I am not nervous about.

One thing is that I just can’t wait to leave my current school and go into a new school, have more freedom and have an open campus. Then on the other hand, I am not looking forward to the older kids, being the new kid, graduation, being in a huge school, getting good grades, having a lot more homework and even getting older. These emotions are confusing for me, but I think once I actually experience high school, I will get less nervous about entering high school and either enjoy high school or hate it.

In some ways, my current classes are preparing me for the next step. My favorite classes are choir, language arts and Patterns of Nature. I like choir because I love to sing, we do our annual musical and our choir teacher has also been telling us how choir will be at South Eugene High School, which is where he works.

I also like Patterns of Nature because it teaches us practical skills we will need later in life, like how to stay calm during any accident. I enjoy my language arts class because our teacher teaches how to make our writing better and we read good books like The Outsiders, Animal Farm, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I also like language arts because our teacher is the one who prepares us the most for high school by telling us when we will start signing up for classes and other things like that. I hope in a month or so high school will come up more often because right now I am not completely prepared it.

So how am I really feeling? To be honest I am not actually scared to go into high school, I am just nervous — nervous to start a big step in my life. For anyone it would be nerve-wracking because it is a big step into growing up and having more responsibility.

I know I don’t want to grow up and probably a lot of people around my age do not want to grow up and have a lot of responsibility, either. All I have to do is just prepare myself and go through it and try to overcome what I am worried about.