Articles of days long past

Back in high school, I was on the newspaper staff. I hated it and I hated interviewing people. So I only wrote columns and reviews, and put together the entertainment pages and compiled "fun" lists and facts.
Anyway, here's a column I wrote for the Senior newspaper, reading it again made me miss a lot of things about high school.

"Armed with my heavily-chained Tripp pants, a multitude of spiked bracelets covering my wrists and one heck of a "get away from me" aura, I started my first day of high school absolutely terrified. Various rumors about high school swam around my head and had been doing so since the end of 8th grade. Would I lose my best friends forever? Would some senior shove me into a locker? Would I really have to write in cursive for every single class?
Of course, those horrible rumors proved to be nothing but freshman fears. I'm still close with the people I entered high school with (even after graduation) and I gained some very close friends in the process. Cursive remained a myth throughout each and every one of my English classes, and I've never to this day been in a locker against my will.
I had some relatively rough times in my life at home and school in the time it took me to go from frightened freshman to sagacious senior, but I came away from that prison-like high school building with quite a few enjoyable memories. My senior year alone was too incredible to forget.
I had some of the best classes and teachers of my life that year. They got me interested in subjects I would have never dreamed of looking into, and helped me further my learning in areas I was already curious about. I made friends with people I never envisioned myself conversing with, and I reconnected with old friends from years ago. My senior year was truly an amazing year.
When faced with the thought of finally leaving the place that had "tormented" and "plagued" me for so much of my life, I was surprised to find that I was afraid instead of excited like many of my friends. I wasn't sure what I would do with myself, with my life. Attend a university that I wanted or a community college that was closer? Leave behind a home, great memories, a boyfriend, or get an education from a community college? More money saved, or more money spent? My indecision left me with no choice. All I knew for sure, was that I would dearly miss the time I had spent in that building, and all of the things, both good and bad I went through in those four years.
Sure people can tell you about their experience in high school, they can use every word in their vocabulary to try and explain it to you, try and make you see through their eyes; they can even show you colorful little rectangles with images of teenagers permanently frozen in an eternal smile or whatever exciting pose they struck when the shutter went off.
However, in the words of the late Hunter S. Thompson, "no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world." I can't tell you what my experience in high school was like, and you can't understand what those four years were like for me, what emotions and adventures I went through. I won't try to explain it.
Adorned in a black flowing gown, a black square cap and a diploma in one hand and a jarful of memories in the other, I left my final day of high school absolutely terrified"