Walking down the hallways to your next class, the hallways are quiet. Too quiet. As you shuffle down the stairs, you would half expect to see a tumbleweed rolling along in front of you. As you pass Officer Shorter in the hallways, you both tip your heads to each other, like cowboys in a way-back western film. The place is deserted. You cautiously walk towards a door, timidly reach for the doorknob handle… and the bell rings. In less than sixteen seconds, every door in the hallway is flung open, students pouring into the halls, a mass, living form. Breathing, talking, screaming, laughing, tapping away at cell phones, connecting with old friends, making new ones, or using the end of the year to break off toxic relationships they’ve been in for too long. Six minutes of the madness. And then it’s over. The silence resumes.

The end of the school year is always the most exciting part of the year, albeit, the scariest. School hallways become lawless wastelands of terror, in which chaos reigns. Graduating seniors tearfully say goodbye to each other while others pound through the halls, their resounding bellowing echoing “SENIORS… SENIORS… SENIORS…,” Yearbooks are distributed and signed, phone numbers exchanged, final homework is assigned, and exams are taken. And then you’re done.

It’s kind of sad, really. This school, where you’ve invested so much time making friends and doing endless amounts of assignments, you’re leaving. The teachers who you’ve bonded with over the year, gone. It might even make you feel angry, too. After all of this time, throwing yourself under this school’s very feet, studying late into nights you could have spent with family, and this is what you get? A very unceremonious dumping. “You’re free. Go have fun this summer. Be a good kid. Oh, also, do this ton of summer work while you’re at it,” It makes you want to scream.

But the end of the year also more than makes up for that. While making you over emotional, it also can come across as intensely humorous, if you choose to see it that way. The teachers care even less about the dress code, and seem to give up all hope for a peaceful ending to the school year (but then, what were they expecting?) They won’t bat an eye at any kid caught wandering around the halls, wondering where all his friends have gone off to. They also tend to teach (if you can call it that) more interesting stuff than you’ve learned all year!

All in all, the end of the school year is always an emotionally, physically taxing time. But as you walk through the binder, textbook and paper strewn halls of Osceola Fundamental High, don’t forget to remember that you made this school special in your time here. Whether your talent was in band, drama, writing, math, languages, or science, you contributed something essential that made this school yours: your time.