Every year, I fail to prepare for school. Grade after grade, I stay up until midnight, the night before school and end up regretting it in the morning. The first day is a time to see your friends and enjoy yourself before the actual work begins, but I spent mine half-asleep and antisocial.
Freshman year, I remained focused on not making new friends. I focused on strengthening the ones I already possessed, and I succeeded. My good friends turned into great friends and I tightened bonds with them. This paid off because over the summer I had people to go out and eat with, play basketball at the park with and make memories with. Little did I know, sophomore year would seem as though those friendships did not exist.
School stresses people out, but the first day should not be like that. The very first day, no one I knew shared classes with me. Friends I talked to on social media ended up in my classes, but not the friends I hung out with. The realization smacked me in the face, this meant I had to make new friends or at least try. I did not really think of it as a necessity, but boredom is not my favorite thing. “Summer mode” still possessed my brain which made the first day one of the most stressful. The work can be boring, but the time in class did not have to.
The year started off looking pretty bad. Most of the time I would have my headphones in and keep to myself. If we had assigned seats I became more antisocial than anything. I would sit by either people I kind of knew, those I never spoke to or people who did not go to Legacy the year before. The seating arrangement kind of forced conversation between these people. Making small talk challenges me, but after a while of getting to know people, it paid off. Talking to new people can propose a challenge but a new outlook has changed that.
Just having little conversations with the same person may result in making yourself a new friend. My sophomore year, as of late matches, up to my expectations. If you establish yourself with new people, so they somewhat know you, talking to them will feel less awkward. Freshman year, I did not do this and I regret it. I had a subtle fear of talking to new people, but it turned out to not as challenging as I thought.
