LIZZY WARNER
Gargoyle senior editor
Posted Monday, May 11, 2009

WHEN I WAS a freshman everything I did was important, because, of course, everyone sincerely cared about every little thing I did.

It was an excellent idea to keep a daily blog that I worked on updating more than I did my homework.

All those constant posts about what I did every single minute of every single day, which always included my not-so-subtle snide teenage comments, were of extreme importance to the rest of the world.

At the same time I became obsessed with my newest favorite movie, "Mean Girls." My friends and I decided to name ourselves the BC and attach signs to our lockers indicating that we were BC members.

Everyone was totally jealous. It was obvious. Mini-skirts and high heels were crucial to our everyday wardrobe, even in winter. It didn't matter how cold it was, it just mattered how absolutely fabulous we looked. Which, of course, was a guarantee.

Life was good. I was definitely the most important person in every room.

Or, so I thought. And then I discovered, like Will Smith at the end of "Men in Black II," that I had been living in my own little locker.

One fateful day at the beginning of sophomore year, something 100 percent completely, totally unfair happened: I got in trouble regarding a rude comment I had made about one of the girls on my sports team.

"Everyone in the world must be against me!" I thought. When I went home, grounded, I just listed how unfair all of this was. "I am not the only person who writes these types of things online. I didn't write it at school! I didn't mean to do it. Etc., etc."

And of course, at the time, it really did feel like everyone was against me. I was not very good with the whole "reality" thing; thinking back on it, I doubt even half the school knew about the trouble I was in. But that was enough to knock me off my high horse. I decided it was time to reform myself.

So, first I erased all of my posts I had ever made on my blog. Then I went and deleted the blog itself leaving nothing but an outdated information page and a gray layout. Our original group of friends all split up and everyone began hanging out with different people. I was going to be a new and improved Lizzy!

But, unfortunately, things don't just change over night. I was ready for sophomore year to be something new, but I had already established myself a certain way during my freshman year. And in a small school like Uni, it is hard to start over.

There were teachers who, despite my doing my homework every day and listening in class, had these preconceived notions of me. Sophomore year, while I felt like I was trying to be better, I was only getting into more trouble. I was constantly in the Student Services Office and, on more than one occasion, I was wrongly accused of things I hadn't done.

I told my mom I wanted to change schools. I was tired of everyone being in my business and thinking that they knew everything about me. I was tired of being put in the spotlight when anything remotely bad went wrong. Life was just unfair.

Since then, though, I have come to realize that the best thing that Uni High could have done for me was to punish me. It sounds a bit weird because who in their right mind appreciates getting in trouble? Except, because Uni High is such a small school, and because everyone was in my business, and because I was constantly feeling monitored, I was forced to edit myself.

If I wanted to be seen as a respectable student I had to actively seek out that role. It wasn't even that I could sit back and tone it down a little. When groups of students were doing something that might even possibly be seen as inappropriate, I started to seriously weigh the pros and cons before participating myself.

In addition I learned how to act in tough situations and talk to adults. As I still see many of my peers doing, I would get in trouble and then come to school complaining as loudly as I possibly could about everything that happened. Everyone would know about it within the next couple of hours and, shockingly enough, that didn't actually ever help anything. (In fact, for those of you have yet to learn, talking about it normally has the opposite effect.)

In addition I discovered that making excuses really doesn't help. Your parents tell you that all the time, but nonetheless that's normally the first reaction people have anyway: Defend yourself! Except I quickly learned that no one actually cares about your self-defense, and most of the time in attempting to explain yourself you dig yourself into a deeper rut.

I learned to choose my words carefully and find things that I truly was sorry for: "I am sorry that hurt her feelings so much. It was wrong."

At first I would blab on with an overly long apology, which just seemed like what was expected of me. But here is a helpful hint that took me a long time to learn: Short and sweet is often not only the easiest and most sincere form of apology, but essentially the most effective as well.

I could go on and on about all the small things that I have learned, and tell you that as small as they seem they are truly invaluable. But it has had to be something that I learned on my own; people have told me these things for years, and until it was my turn to experience what it was like to get in trouble and have every step I take monitored, I just disregarded everything I was told.

As bad as it seemed at the time, there is nothing Uni could have done to better prepare me for college, because now that I have learned my lesson early on in high school I know that I will have that sophistication and knowledge in college while some of my peers will have to spend their "glory years" learning the only way there is to learn: the hard way.

To you underclassmen who are going through what I went through my freshman and sophomore years, just know this: It is not the end of the world. As cheesy as it may sound, just stick with it because, in the end, it will make you a better person.

Thank you, Uni High.