“The four years you spend in high school are going to fly by.” 

“You’re going to be a senior before you even know it.” 

I heard these phrases from a lot of different people as I was starting my freshman year at CHS9. From seniors in high school all the way to freshmen in college, I felt like everyone had given me the same advice or said some phrase along the lines of “time flies” in regards to starting high school, but I never really believed them. 

To me, there was no way that four years of high school could pass by me as quickly as everyone was saying it would. I thought that the four years I would spend would move at an unimaginably slow speed, characterized by tests, quizzes, stress and extracurricular activities.

Now, as I near the end of my junior year and prepare to enter my final year in high school, I have finally realized that those people were right. 

In ninth grade, the first half of the school year moved at a sluggish pace and it felt like ages before I could say that I would be even close to graduating. Then the pandemic hit and I spent the next one and a half years in virtual school. 

I admit that my high school experience was accelerated by the pandemic and I finished up my freshman year uncertain of the future. I made the choice to remain virtual for the entirety of my sophomore year and it felt like a complete blur. A slew of Schoology assignments, video lectures and Zoom meetings muddled together to create a year that I now look back at with confusion and astonishment as to how quickly it went. 

I can understand why my sophomore year felt so quick. However, I was not expecting my junior year to pass by me in an instant in the way that it has. It feels like just yesterday I was mindlessly walking around the vast CHS hallways trying to find my calculus class because I had barely been in the school prior to my first day of junior year. 

As the past three years I have spent in high school have flown by, the world has been moving just as fast, if not faster. It felt like every day, there was something happening in the world that made me worried : the Australian bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, the rise of the Omicron variant and the crippling winter storm in Texas in 2021, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the leaks suggesting the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The list goes on and on of the historic moments from the past three years. 

So, as I get ready for my final year of high school, and potentially my final year in Coppell, I am trying to force myself to not get my expectations too high. I am well aware that senior year is not the walk in the park that everyone makes it out to be. Just the college applications part is enough to make me nervous. But no matter how much I try to stop myself, I cannot help but be excited to begin my final year of high school and finish this chapter of my life. 

Although I am excited for the future and where my life will take me after high school, I find myself wondering where all the time went. 

Follow Manasa (@Manasa_Mohan_7) and @CHSCampusNews on Twitter.