Get Over It

Freshmen will always act like freshmen, and no matter what anyone tells them, they will never cease to be amazed at the little details that the rest of us have long since forgotten. They are so amused by words like "the anorexic hallway" and that viking painting in the cafeteria, which upperclassmen rarely even talk about anymore. Sometimes, I just want to tell them to get over it, but I know they will, and I know that this confusion and amazement is just a part of being a freshman.
This year, my bus is swarming with freshmen, and I can't help but hear all of their conversations. In the hall, I remember hearing one of them ask his friend what class they had next. The friend simply responded with, "the anorexic hallway," saying this with self-content for knowing the hallway's special name. The other kid, clearly annoyed, replied with "No, what CLASS do you have?" One day my freshman brother even came home and said, "Did you know that there's this one hallway called the 'anorexic hallway'??" I guess being so fascinated by a hallway with a name is just something that gets old after a while, and I know that everything else about Fremd has lost my interest after two years. No matter how "cool" the freshmen think they are, they still get pushed around by everyone else. On my bus, the freshmen sit in the back of the bus because the "coolest" kids always sit in the back, or at least that's how it was in junior high, but when a sophomore stomped down the aisle, he threw two freshmen out of their seats and condemned them to sit in the front.
I don't blame them for feeling lost in a new school. I don't even blame them for asking a hall monitor for directions or checking their maps because Fremd is just so "enormous," because soon, they grow out of that, but they are still in the junior high stages of life. These are the stages where it's hilarious to say hi or wave to random strangers--the stages where everything is black and white--the stages where you know everyone and you either love him or you hate her. All of the freshmen on my bus have known each other since grade school, and I've even known them since grade school but to see them all as freshmen is actually kind of cool. Everyday, they get on the bus and reunite to share what happened that day. In a way, they're not really different from how they were when they were in grade school at all. Somehow, they are closer than ever.