The Beginning and End of High School Me

 Freshman year of high school was one rollercoaster of an adventure and my second favorite high school year. Though I was anxious to meet new people and felt pretty insignificant and small in a school much bigger than First Colony, crossing paths with people I've never met in my life was one of my proudest decisions to this day. Of course, to an extent, everyone looks different when comparing how they look now to how they looked freshman year. So, instead of talking about the typical "Oh I grew taller and this and that", one significant difference that I have now that I lacked in freshman year are the people who surround me now. This may not be a characteristic like, for example, losing 50 pounds, learning how to swim freshman year and now captain of the varsity swim team, or having a better fashion sense. However, my friends mean a lot to me and they have impacted me in so many ways, causing me to change drastically throughout high school. Some of them made me want to work out and lose weight (though not 50 pounds). Some of them made me really interested in swimming and find passions in other sports like Volleyball and Badminton. Some of them have inspired me to and helped me achieve better style. Now, I frequently hang out with my friends to the point where there is not one week where I go without hanging out with someone -- either at a Chic Fil A after 6th period, at someone's house, or playing Volleyball. During freshman year, I barely had any friend groups and now, I'm grateful to be in the presence of more.