After climbing the ladder of the educational system and completing the required number of years and achieving the scores demanded to move on to things later on in life; I find myself stuck with the question what am I doing now? I spent the last five years in two different college-preparatory high schools away from the reality of the real world. From the ages of 16-19 I lived away from home in a dorm very similar to a college setting. I tackled the troubling idea of leaving home at a younger age rather than other kids who leave home for the first time at college. I guess it's fair to say that I have in a way been creating my own path by myself during the more important years of maturity.

This past May I graduated from Tilton School and was brought back home into the real world. Instead of taking the recommended path by the school college counselor, I have decided to take a gap year to compete in athletics, travel, and have a year off from tests and late night papers. While this all sounds so sweet and dandy, I play hockey which is a full time commitment as well as working whenever I can. The only issues are, where am I going to go to school? Where do I start my career? What do I want to do with myself?

In school we learn about The revolutionary War, Calculus, Advanced Writing courses, but I haven't learned anything that I need to know in the real world. Roughly at the ages of 17-19 we're tossed into society and expected to know everything. We're now held accountable for any actions as we're adults, and we're constantly stressed with friends, relationships, debt, and sleep: and everyone expects this to be normal: that this is 'growing up' that nobody said it was going to be easy. This may be a biased statement but life after high school was not what was wished.

At this time, I have a chance to escape from working on homework late at night, but jumping into the real world and figuring everything out from scratch is going to be a competition of its own.