By Cassidy Liu

Sports Editor

  On the first day of freshman year, I remember carrying around my squeaky clean navy backpack. It was completely stuffed with five different colored notebooks, a three-inch binder with folders for every class, and a seemingly endless amount of obnoxious bright colored pens, pencils, and highlighters.

  Fast forward to the first day of senior year, I was still lugging around a much more beat up version of the navy backpack stuffed with practically nothing but air. With eleven years of experience under my belt, I would definitely call myself an expert when it comes to what to expect on the first day of school.

  Knowing that most, if not all, my teachers were just going to ramble about class policies and course outlines, I figured bringing notebooks would only act as pillows during classes.

  Instead, I brought more practical items: a pack of lemon candy to keep my head off the desk while my teachers were speaking, earbuds to blast the music that would keep me sane, and hand cream to keep my hands nice and moisturized against the freezing classroom AC.

  For lunch, I packed the same meal that I have been eating for the past five years: a plain peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread. I was extremely sick of eating it, but it was either my plain cardboard sandwich or the horrid cafeteria food.

  Much to my dismay, I also had to bring more academic objects, such as my summer reading book for AP Literature. After hearing rumors about the infamous in-class essay given on the first day of school, I wanted to be extremely prepared for anything my AP Literature teacher, Marguerita Drew, would throw at us. I made sure to bring my lucky pen, which is only used to write in-class essays and my notes on the summer assignment for that class.

  Thankfully, the day passed without any major assignments, and I was able to survive the first day of school.

  Although my practicality might be looked down upon as laziness, or even worse senioritis, I was simply being logical. This was reflected on the extra object brought on the second day of school- my binder filled with lined paper.