Flashback to 2010. The walls of my school were teal rather than peach (though, really, since when is that peach-orange sort of mesh part of the school’s color scheme? Or the blue that lines certain hallways for that matter?) and my shirts had barracudas on them instead of vipers.

Nonetheless, there is a reason that I sport the Viper these days, and it goes a bit deeper than what school I attend.

Up until my junior year, that being this very year, school was merely a place I would go to at seven o’clock in the morning and leave at two in the afternoon.

I went to a school that was a good forty-five minutes away by bus, to and back, without another means of getting home, thus removing any possibility of joining clubs and expanding horizons.

For me, this was a wonderful example of not knowing what you have until it is gone. I took the ability to enjoy school for granted and eventually realized that I went to a school where, despite loving the people, I was chained to a desk and a curriculum with very little leeway.

To say that I was unhappy with Coral Reef would be an understatement.

Jump to August 2011. It is probably 5 a.m. and I never got to sleep. It is at that point that I realized that in just over two hours, I was starting at an entirely new school, despite being familiar with much of the student body.

Stepping between the–albeit strangely painted–hallways of Varela, I am sure that I made the right choice.

I recall a strange familiarity to it, my occasional after school visits to troupe 6162‘s domain the year before notwithstanding. The people are, for the most part, kind and the administration seems to be genuinely concerned with its students more than what its students will make the school look like, a feeling that was entirely foreign.

My sophomore year I had been introduced to the Viper Vibe, the very publication these words are printed on.

And now, a year later, here I am, living the dream.

Not to turn this into an awful sob story, but I missed many opportunities while in middle school. Granted, all of these things built me to the giant nerd I am today, but there were opportunities missed.

So now I am dead-set on taking advantage of every opportunity that presents itself to me; every time Mr. Opportunity knocks on my door, I come running.

High school is meant to be the greatest four years of your life, whether that be because not everyone goes to college so it would be unfair to call college the greatest years of one’s life or because they actually are, is another matter entirely.

But the point is that I missed far too many opportunities to let these last two years go to waste. I am finally allowing myself to pursue the things that I love, to pursue, journalism and theatre, to let myself take advantage of the opportunities the school gives me–something that should not ever be taken for granted.

There is a phrase that I am almost certain everyone has heard of. "The grass is always greener on the other side."

And possibly even the cautionary phrase, "all that glitters is not gold." While this may be true, sometimes that glittery little patch of grass actually is gold, against all odds.