A Comprehensive Guide to High School Graduation

After many many months, hello again blogosphere! Yes, I've been super MIA recently dealing with my final year of school and all, but I'm super excited to announce that I have FINALLY GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL! It's pretty crazy and I can't quite believe it, but as of Wednesday the 21st of September, I have been free from the confines of secondary education. Sure, I have the HSC coming up in less than three weeks and a bunch of holiday study workshops, but never again do I have to wear my uniform, refrain from doing my nails or wearing make up (not that I really ever did), or be treated like a child slave with no rights. To celebrate the momentous occasion and perhaps give everyone who is yet to finish high school a run down of what to expect, I have decided to guide you all through what went down on graduation day with as much media as possible. So without further ado, here is my comprehensive break down . . .

The last day of school will start off pretty chaotically. Everyone will rebel and do whatever they want, and wreak as much havoc as they can in a last ditch effort to leave their mark on the school and challenge the system.

But eventually, the teachers will manage to gain some semblance of control and gather you all together for one last time, meaning that you're all just sitting there with extreme pent up energy and no way of releasing it.

This is followed by an onslaught of emotional speeches and anecdotes from teachers and student leaders, the good ones leaving your overly energised and emotionally conflicted self watching on like:

While the cheesy, unoriginal and uninspired ones allow you to get in touch with your (not so) inner cynic, and remind you how much you actually want to leave high school.

Then comes the hella nostalgic graduation slideshow (or in our case, epic mockumentary style video) that is guaranteed to hit you in the feels at least once, once again leaving you confused and overwhelmed.

Your school then won't care that you're in a state of emotional turmoil, because all of this will most likely be followed by everyone light-heartedly dancing to either Vitamin C's 'Graduation (Friends Forever)', Alice Cooper's 'School's Out', or if your graduation happens to fall on September 21st as ours did, Earth Wind and Fire's 'September'. So of course, you'll plaster a fake smile on your face and dance through the pain.

It's once again time to suppress everything you're feeling, as graduation certificates - and if traditional methods of academic testing are your thing - merit awards, are ceremoniously given out. The people receiving awards walk across the stage like:

While the people who get nothing want to get it over with as quickly as possible and temporarily lose their will to live.

Then comes perhaps the most epic part of the graduation ceremony - the final time you will get to sing your school song. Everyone will sing like a maniac and it will be glorious.

The entire cohort then proceeds to process out like gods, because gosh darn it, after six years, you've finally conquered high school.

And that's it, you're out of there. You spend a few minutes outside emotionally saying goodbye to all your friends like:

Before bidding farewell to your enemies forever.

And everything's cute and emotional for a while, until you realise that you'll be back at school for pre-HSC holiday classes in three days, and are guaranteed to see each other at least 5 more times before formal.

Then you go home and have to put up with every adult ever telling you how you've now got all these new rights and responsibilities and what not.

And on the outside you're like:

But on the inside you're secretly freaking out because you have no idea how to be an actual person.

Though overall, even though everything's uncertain and changing really quickly, you'll just be happy that high school is officially dead.

And bam, just like that, 13 years of schooling are over. Luckily, I vlogged the whole day, and in addition to that, celebrated the fact that I was graduating by replicating a bunch of iconic teen movie moments at my high school while I still had the chance, all of which I will be posting on my Youtube channel (which you can check out here - you gotta love that cheeky self promotion). And now, it's done. I mean sure, in literally 7 hours I will be back at school from 9 till 3, so it doesn't really feel like much has changed, but I think that I'll slowly start to morph into a real life person. Til' next time . . .

Annabel xx