Stein's Corner: Eighteen Years of Reflections by Alex Stein

This is my penultimate article…

20 thoughts, lessons, and other shoulda-woulda-coulda’s of my last 18 years:

1. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS take keyboarding as soon as school offered it. It became the most important class I have ever taken.
2. Using the school bathrooms is my worst nightmare.
3. How come the kids who were a grade above you always looked so much older? When I was in first grade the kids in second grade looked like they just graduated college.
4. Never wear the same clothes two days in a row even if they are clean, someone is bound to notice and then its just awkward.
5. I shoulda hired a set of NFL referees during recess when we played football, we would have played much more. I think we spent more time arguing over who was going to get Will Quigley on their team.
6. Get involved in at least one group, sport, or club. It will broaden your horizons and expose you to people that you usually don’t come into contact with.
7. Fast Times At Ridgemont High and American Pie are not plausible recreations of High School.
8. Don’t take electives that you have no interest in but may seem easy. As soon as you get in the class you will regret it.
9. The friends you will have in kindergarten will most likely not be your friends when you are a senior in high school.
10. I shoulda stopped caring about what everyone thought about me when I was playing basketball. I would have been far more successful.
11. What we thought was cool in 8^th grade we wouldn’t be caught dead doing today.
12. In 8^th grade, Starbucks after school on Fridays was the coolest thing we could possibly do.
13. The day Modern Warfare 2 came out when I was a sophomore in High School felt like the longest day ever.
14. Who remembers how many times they were “sent out on an island” in Mrs. Bouliers class?
15. How come we can wear hats in high school but are forbidden in middle school?
16. We always knew who was going to ask the most awkward questions in Sex-Ed.
17. The fecal phantom may go down as the greatest conspiracy in Marblehead history.
18. There was nothing scarier than Marblehead Youth Baseball tryouts. What’s more terrifying than Bruce Bial with a clipboard?
19. Is it a coincidence that the year we graduate the world is supposed to end. All that hard work is useless.
20. Now an overused cliché: “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you may miss it.”