OP-ED: Was I supposed to learn something in high school?

When I entered high school four years ago, I expected the greatest challenge that I had faced thus far. Throughout my freshmen year I waited cautiously for the difficulty spike to rise from the mediocre levels that I had experienced in middle school. I feared that my social life was over, that I might lose the relationship that I built with my parents, and that, worst of all, I would find that I had changed into a completely different person. Luckily, that difficulty never came to me, as I just decided not to try that hard. I may not be an honors student but I’m passing and…

Was I supposed to have learned something from the four years of high school?

Now, it isn’t like I didn’t have a lot going on. What, with my daily afternoon nap, fueling my growing body with as much food as possible, and consistently ensuring that at least one season of television was watched on Netflix per week, I would say that there was reason enough for me to stop worrying about the effort I put into school work. But there’s still this gnawing feeling that there should be at least one moment I can look back on, where I thought: “Hey, that’s cool! I didn’t know that before.” I have absolutely nothing to say about the eight hours a day I spent sitting on my phone in class. Literally, zero. Zilch. That’s embarrassing.

Sometimes, if I scrunch up my nose and rub my temples, I can state with uncertainty that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, but it isn’t clear whether I saw that on Twitter or if I was told in Chemistry or whatever. Perhaps the lesson I learned is that life shouldn’t be taken that seriously, because you’re just going to die in the end? Ah, forgot it. I guess it isn’t a big deal. My counselor is always telling me that I’ll probably get a second shot at this whole high school deal.