First day still causes worry senior year

I should have something deep to say about entering the hallowed halls of high school for one last year. After all, my senior year is something I've been looking forward to since I was small enough to squeeze under the bathroom sink.

At 4, I successfully completed the requisite lessons in playdough, duck-duck-goose and sharing my toys and got to "gradute" from the Learning Garden Preschool. Wearing a funny-looking hat with string on top and getting an orange paper with my name and a sticker on it were even more amazing than seeing Rainbow Brite at the movie theater. Graduating from preschool was a promise of bigger things to come.

I'm still waiting.

What can I say? Twelve years in the public school system is enough to tarnish the golden anticipation of youth to a dull bronze. Somehow, a long speech, a blue mortarboard and a piece of paper with a sticker on it can't compensate for the torture of hundreds of math tests.

This year will differ little from past years. I'll still spend a week experiencing the torture known as "Looking for Jeans That Fit," although I also get to spend a whole day at Office Depot choosing spiffy pens and folders with cartoon characters.

I still will walk into school the first day worried about what I'm wearing. Do I go with my T-shirt from music camp or the one from the Royal Fireworks Festival? Natural jeans or stonewashed? Boots or sneakers?

There will probably be some worry about my classes, too. After all, what happens if underwater basket weaving is right after B- movies as classic literature? Those classrooms are on opposite ends of campus.

And what about school dances? There's all the talk about the dance beforehand, the fruitless search for the right casual dress, the dilemma over which movies to rent when you give up on the whole endeavor and stay home.

Have I mentioned the worry about there not being anything to worry about?

I suppose the banality of it all is what makes your senior year the best. When you've been there and done that a dozen times already, you're spared at least a small hassle. Finally, this is what I've been waiting for!

But then again, there still are senior pictures, parking passes, college applications, scholarship searches, prom, graduation . . .

At least I've got one more year to get everything done.

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