It was finally the first day of high-school and I was ready. I’d spent almost all summer preparing with the obvious textbooks to surviving high-school: teen rom-coms. I’d learned how to deal with cliquey mean girls or how to turn Saturday school detentions into a blast or balance being on the Science Bowl team and being the lead in the school musical. I was ready, heck I was practically invinsi-thud! 

Face met with cement. Arms flailed, trying desperately to stop the inevitable. The culprit, a misplaced rock, lay a few feet away, innocently. My cheeks flushed red as I lay face-flat in front of my high-school while hundreds of high-schoolers rushed past or over me.

 That wasn’t the first time I fell that freshmen year. High-school-in a stunning turn of events-was hard. I got lost constantly, Biology Honors gave more homework than seemed humanly possible, and I began averaging about 5 hours of sleep per night. Swamped with work and yet ever pressured to do more, I saw my grades and my sanity fall. I would have been doomed to a life of pitfalls if not for my Academic Decathlon team. For me, Academic Decathlon was the one place where I could explore who I was academically without the pressure of teacher’s expectations or grades. Even though I wasn’t on the competition team, I still learned a lot from that first year of Academic Decathlon and I vowed to improve myself next year, this time based not on cheesy rom-com movies, but instead actual experience. Through hard work and dedication I was able to improve myself, to the point that by Junior year I was able to become both a straight-A student and succeed as a member of my Academic Decathlon team, becoming Captain of my team and winning first place in my category at County. And I’m sure that I’m getting to end up falling again at some point in my life, but I know now that it’s okay to fall down sometimes(even if it’s in front of your entire school). What’s importance is learning from the experience and having the courage to stand back up again.