From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Will You be Sad to Leave High School?

All good things must come to an end

By David Mazor
Ben Lipson Hillel High

May 8 2008

I'm not going to lie: High school was great while it lasted.

But when they call my name and I walk down that aisle to receive my diploma, I'm not going to be sad.

Sure I'll miss my friends and the good times we had, but all good things must come to an end — so they can be replaced by better ones.

For most teens, college and post high-school life mean freedom. They mean the freedom to make your own choices — to choose who you want to be, what you want to do and when you want to do it.

Expect many significant changes.

Lunch: Lunch will become an activity you will actually engage in with your eyes open. You will no longer have to refer to foods by their color. "Pass some of the brown mush, and don't forget to put on some extra white liquid!" will be replaced by, "May I please have some more chocolate pudding with whipped cream?"

I never intend to eat another fish stick as long as I live.

Dress Code: After high school, dress codes will be as outmoded as suspenders or last season's leopard print. Feel free to wear hats anywhere you want, yes, even indoors. In college, you can even go to class in your pajamas.

Can you say, "Goodbye chinos, hello pleather, zirconium-studded hot pants"?

Bells: I don't know about you, but the past four years of relying on the bell system that is indigenous to high schools everywhere has really conditioned me. I mean that in the most Pavlovian sense of the word. My parents had a similar system installed in my house after they found me sitting at the dinner table when they woke up for work the next morning. I had never left the table since there was no ringing to tell me that dinner was over.

(Brrrrrring! Next paragraph. Brrrrrring!)

Ultimately it boils down to this: We are no longer confined to the classrooms and hallways of America's high school institutions, so why continue living as if we are?

Do former convicts put bars around their rooms to remind them of "the good ol' days"? Does Bill Clinton have a mock oval office in his garage?

That's not to say I'm not going to keep in touch with my former classmates. I mean, it's easy nowadays with Facebook and the Internet to stay connected.

But for me, the end of high school is the final chapter in the saga they call adolescence, and it is the beginning of everything else.