enter soapbox and didactic tone.

the ultimately devastating truth:
high school will suck unless you allow it to be incredible.

this is what i believe about high school, and the activities and social encounters associated with it: 
they are a blessing.
they are inherently wonderful.
if they are boring or stupid or predictable or juvenile, that is you.

yes.
things like prom are overcommerialized.
yes. you will buy an expensive dress and then shoes and then accessories and then go get your hair and nails done and ride in a limo and soon enough spend a thousand dollars on one evening.

or you won't.
and it will be even better.
you can buy a cheap dress and have a wonderful friend do your hair and possibly even create your own boutonniere out of 25 cent red felt from walmart.

it is up to you.

(does that mean you need to get asked to dances to have fun as a high school student? absolutely not. i've only been asked to two, and the times i haven't have been just as fun. the point is, though, that if you aren't asked doesn't mean you have license to bash if you otherwise would have loved to go.)

you can be a hipster that is bent upon disregarding every social aspect of teenagehood and complaining about expectations and unacceptance and the close-mindedness of utahns and spend weekends doing whatever hipsters do. (what do they do? practice the harpsichord and read r. buckminster fuller? (okay, i read fuller... i don't know what hipsters read. dead russian poets?)) scratch that. they go to cat raves.

or you won't.
you can be a real-live person who maybe doesn't enjoy the radio music they play at dances, but you go to them and dance your heart out and maybe even scream "beibs forever" just for the principle of the matter. the matter that it doesn't matter. you can go to basketball games and tell the other team to gag you with a fish and you can act exactly like a high school student and it does not take any integrity away from the intelligent and classy human being that you are.

i go to a school where everybody is friends. and everybody is lovely. and i love everyone there.
i am friends with people who are involved. i am involved. and that's why i'm happy.
if i didn't find joy in stag dances and talent shows, high school would be the most awful thing that's ever happened to me.
but i am infinitely grateful for the fact that i've found the fun in being a teenager.
it doesn't mean i am ordinary. and ordinary isn't awful. i don't think there is an ordinary.
even though i do the same things that all the "conformist people" do, does not make me a conformist. (nor them.)
i have not lost any of my uniqueness because i sit on bleachers and go to the assemblies.
and here is the kicker.
high school has been a blast.
and i am well aware that the best hasn't even come yet. i have a miraculous future ahead, full of adventure and fun and learning. it will be better than high school. but that doesn't mean high school isn't worth smiling through.

i know that quite a few of you readers are high school students or soon-to-be ones. and i just want to let you know that you have a choice. you can love high school or you can hate it. it's up to you. you may rather do other things than participate in high school activities. but you should try to be involved, really. see what you can do.

the best is yet to come, and won't that be fine.

love, hannah.