Senior year comes with a lot of expectations. For three years, you’ve been on the bottom of the totem pole, the back of the student section and facing people’s backs during assemblies. You’re finally ready to be a senior, and the year comes with the expectation of being the best year ever. Sorry to say, things like the Blue Bomb and prom didn’t end up being the best days of my existence. But senior year was a good time for other reasons, and maybe that’s the point.

It seems like the most fun parts of my senior year, as well as my high school experience as a whole, came from the most unexpected places. I rekindled an old romantic interest thanks to Mr. Shull’s alphabetical seating chart, I decided on going to the University of Nebraska because of a booth I passed during lunch and I became the Outstanding Band Senior just by showing up.

I also joined journalism on accident. At the end of my freshman year, I was approached by Habs during 21st Century Journalism and she asked why I hadn’t submitted an application for the newspaper. I said I was too busy; she said this is the “busy club” and promised it wouldn’t be too much. So I joined. And three years later I’m sitting here at a computer in the back row writing my last opinion as an editor-in-chief. It feels like the Talking Heads song where I ask myself “How did I get here?” I don’t know how. It kind of just happened.

During senior year, you don’t really expect anything new to happen. You think you’ve got it all figured out, but trust me, you don’t. Be open to letting the unexpected happen, because it really is good for you.