New Semester, New Slate
Written by Christian Rutten, Former Student on Friday, January 23, 2015
Our high school lives are broken into crucial time periods where we push and shove everything into two halves of the year, work our butts off for the highest grades, and hope our teachers recognize it. Then before you know it, the semester is over and you almost feel stopped in mid stride, and a picture is taken of your progress, then progress is in turn taken and shown to everyone around, it almost becomes a stamp of who we are.
Now, some may think of the semester change as nothing big while others see it as a time period that could change their life, not getting good grades one semester would in turn become a push to keep you going faster in order to achieve higher grades the next semester.
But as many linger on the mistakes made in the previous semester they are only doing half of what is needed to fix it, actually doing something about it. A new semester is like a clean slate, some new teachers and no grades following you from the previous semester.
“The new semester is something we only get eight of in our high school careers, I know when the time half-way through the year comes for me, it is crunch time, that’s when I know if I need to bunker down and work harder or do exactly what I did before,” said senior, Nick Nelson.
If we spent our lives looking back at the hole we just fell into and twisted our ankle, odds are we have a much higher change of stepping in another one if we are looking back at the last one and not looking for new ones.
“I use the semester change to reflect on how I did the previous semester and how I can improve,” said senior, Katy Benoit.
Use the semester change as a clean slate and don’t focus on the last, the first semester is over and there is nothing you can do to change it, but the new one is here, ready to ride out the school year with you.
I think we get so caught up as students that we let these “semesters” control our lives, one bad grade might mean the difference between one school and another, but I believe everything happens for a reason so why not let those failures allow you to pick yourself up and go somewhere else, in some other direction.
Don’t let your grades define you as a person, you are who you are and there is nothing you can do to change that after your grades are posted. Live life and don’t worry, everything will work itself out and, before you know it, second semester will be gone too. Even if you spend all your time looking back at the hole, maybe you never stepped in another one, but you never realized what amazing opportunities were right in front of you because you only ever had one plan in your head. Set your plan in concrete, but never let it dry until you’re ready.
