Seventeen hours goes a lot faster when you’ve been drugged with anesthetics.
Going into the surgery, I felt like I was going to come out like a Captain America.
You know the story: a soldier is surgically enhanced with super-human and bionic parts.
After the operation, however, I felt quite the opposite of a superhero.

I hadn’t even gotten to East yet, but because of the scoliosis surgery —an operation in which the doctors put metal rods in my back to straighten my spine— my high school career was already starting off on the wrong foot.

I was exhausted every day that summer, falling asleep to Will Ferrell movies and playing video games in a reclining wheelchair.

But as the school year approached, my family and I thought I had enough energy to go to East.

Boy, were we wrong.

I was exhausted every day, so much so that all I wanted to do is go into the nurse’s office and sleep.

As a result, my grades really suffered. I was barely passing most of my classes, and I also developed some bad study habits, building up a backlog of missing assignments.
Once sophomore year rolled around, I was fully recovered from my surgery, but still my bad study habits continued. I didn’t turn a lot of work in during the first semester, and again my grades slipped.

I literally thought I was too cool for school.

But then, in the second semester of my sophomore year, something turned my high school career around: I took a class called Journalism 1 and met a teacher named Mr. Dow Tate.

As a major sports fan, I had always been fascinated with sports broadcasting and journalism, ever since I was a little kid. I had always considered it as a potential profession and thought journalism would be fun, ultimately resulting in a spot on the award-winning Harbinger.

I thought I would come in there, already a world-class writer, and wow Mr. Tate to death.

Wrong.

No teacher has ever critiqued me harder than Mr. Tate, and I’m very glad he did. The competitive side in me wanted to get better and show him that I could improve, that my overall writing could be strengthened.

And the hard work and dedication to get better has translated to every other class after that.

I know I’ve driven Mr. Tate crazy at times throughout the two-and-a-half years I’ve known him —not turning in work on time and slacking off in class sometimes— and I’ll admit he’s driven me crazy sometimes, too.

Despite all of the stressful deadline nights and Mr. Tate always prodding us to stay on task, though, I’ve actually learned to love those moments. The camaraderie we’ve built in rooms 520 and 521 is something I’ll never forget.

From the weird mix CDs we play, with everything from Kanye West to French techno-rap, to Gage Brummer’s constant jokes and wild stories, to “Crunch Time” in which everyone gets a fun-size Crunch bar during the final hour of each deadline night, it has all been incredible.

The last two years on newspaper have been the most enjoyable times in my high school career. I do have one regret, however, and that is the fact that I wasn’t on newspaper longer.

I wish I could’ve experienced more of those grueling deadlines and Chipotle and Mr. Goodcents dinners.

It sounds weird, but I wish I could have been able to maneuver through the disaster area that is room 521. At least a couple more times

It always seems to me that when you’re doing something you don’t want to do, time is at a standstill, and when you’re doing something you enjoy, time flies by.
Kind of like when you’re under anesthetics, only a bit more enjoyable.

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