That was yesterday. I don’t know why schools have arbitrarily decided to throw their students back into school on random weekdays, but hey, why fight it?

We started off the day with some gate-cheering; the seniors assembled bright and early at the school gates, cheering incoming newbies with signs and noisemakers and elaborate getups. Unfortunately, I was fighting a sore throat and aching joints so I slept in and missed that one.

I have a free first period of the day. I’m not sure if I like this or not, because it could either entail really good things for my productivity or really bad things. We’ll see how that operates. In fact, I’m writing this post during my first period free.

Met my teachers, met my teachers, blah blah blah. They all seem very pleasant and genuine, but hey, it is the first day of senior year, right? I’m sure anything and everything that happens to me will be bathed in the light of seniority. Nonetheless, my teachers all seem optimistic and eager to teach, which gave me this awesome vibe about the strong start that I wanted to get to this year, that I haven’t felt much in years past.

Then…came the pep rally. This is where the seniors storm the basketball court in their senior t-shirts with face paint and firefighter helmets (as was our theme this year), and where the awkward kids sort of just lounge around in the back of the crowd. I was towards the back. Promptly after this was over, we all went to go sit in the bleachers, while our class presidents announced the games…

And they called my name. At first, I thought that I had misheard one of them. But then the people around me turned towards me and started cheering. Up I stood, and through the row of people I stumbled over, cursing myself for choosing to sit in the very middle of the row. These were light and silly gamed, half-rigged so that the seniors would win everytime, arbitrarily decided when it came pretty close.

I played the game (dressed up in a feather boa, angel wings, and a witches hat and then spun around with a baseball bat) and turned towards the crowd of seniors and motioned victoriously after the seniors inevitably won (the other grade levels were purposely disadvantaged) and the crowd…just exploded.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t get up in front of major crowds very often. Well, I do for things like debate and giving speeches, but not usually in a peppy sense. Maybe it’s because normally sports players get called up, and people in my social group rarely make enough social waves to even be considered for the picking.

Whatever the case, I have no opinion on the matter. The experience was both fun, yet slightly embarrassing. But different in years past, I walked back to my spot in the middle of the bleacher row with more confidence than I usually emanate, and people took notice. I think it was a mixture of newfound seniority and not caring as much what people thought of me. It has taken me a long time, and I’m nowhere close to where I’d ideally like to be in my self-consciousness, but I am on my way to full on not letting others’ opinions get to me. It’s a weird feeling.

– Daily Prompt