Now that I have finished the first semester, I can reflect on the lessons I learned during my first months of high school. The one piece of advice I would give myself is immediately be ready to give 100% to my classes.  I thought I would be able to ease into the school year, and my teachers would give us nice, easy assignments.  I imagined a school day reviewing easy topics from eighth grade and multiple opportunities to put my head down on my desk and take a nap. With my school-issued iPad, I was hoping to review Dean Lutkus’s Instagram posts from the summer. Unfortunately, the beginning of the semester was like jumping out of an airplane into a raging white water river and not knowing how to swim. It’s not that the classes were difficult, it’s that you have to be ready to work hard and quickly get comfortable with the fast pace. Since I am convinced I am descended from sloths, anything related to being fast isn’t in my vocabulary. Now that I have finished the first semester, I am ready to take the lessons I learned from my mistakes into 2017.