"One of my strong beliefs in life is that it is about experiencing anything and everything you can. Each experience shapes you in some way so you become your experiences.”
These are the words I wrote on a recent essay for my English teacher, Mr. Cox. While thinking about my Darlington story, I have been going through year by year of experiences at Darlington and how they led me to where I am today.
I started Darlington as an eager 1st grader ready to seize the year with my teacher, Mrs. Monk. I remember spending forever (not really, but at the time it seemed like it) doing the dreaded Beka homework and learning how to tell time. In third grade, I remember studying my “times tables” for hours, In fourth grade, I remember memorizing states and capitals. In seventh grade, I remember learning about Ponce de Leon and the fountain of youth.
Fast forward to ninth grade: picture a shy freshman stepping into their first day of high school. Everyone said, “Get involved as much as possible,” and I never really understood why until later when I learned my lesson. In ninth grade, I hung in the background, I only went to a couple of football games and I volunteered twice with servant leadership. Other than that, I didn’t do much except outside of school. By the end of the year, I realized what I had done: I had wasted a whole year of high school doing nothing with Darlington.
My main goal in tenth grade was to become more involved in the Darlington Community; I just needed to figure out how. I started out by going to most of the home football games and hanging out in the dorms. Then I spent the night in the dorms more and more that year and volunteered for every single servant leadership trip to Rome Little Theatre.
If you had told me three years ago what I would be doing in eleventh grade, I would have laughed at you and said there was absolutely no way! Eleventh grade, I became a day leader in the dorms. I became part of the Tiger Expert Web Team (hence this post). Now I am also part of our awesome servant leadership team, helping out with every Rome Little Theatre show. I achieved my goal of tenth grade beyond what I would have thought possible because I stepped far out of my comfort zone and became a part of Darlington.
