As you walk through those doors you can feel the eyes beating you down with judgement. You come face to face with the most popular girls in school and you see them carving a label into your skin of what you will be seen as for the rest of your high school career; they will either accept you as one of them or you’ll be cast aside and be a nobody.

This is exactly how most girls who are familiar with “Mean Girls” expect their first day of high school to be, and fortunately the reality is nothing like that. In my opinion Northwest is a place where “popularity” is not really relevant. People just live their life. They find a friend group that they can relate to and that is all that really matters. Walking through the hallway and seeing someone wearing what they want and not caring what others think is really refreshing to me, because who are we to judge someone for expressing themselves.

Originally I was going to write this weeks blog about the different “types” of people at Northwest, but then I realized the 1,700 types can’t be stuck under any individual label. As many of us have heard millions of times throughout our lives “don’t judge a book by its cover.” It is one of the most important life lessons because by judging someone by their appearance or labeling them, you are missing out on what might of been an unforgettable book.

All of this goes along with bullying. Bullying is not just shoving kids into lockers and smacking their books out of their hands, but it is just the concept of calling kids names behind their back. On so many occasions I have heard people call a girl a “slut” because of the choices they made or call a guy “gay” because he showed some of their soft side, but really what they do and say are their business. It does not affect you, so why waste your breath putting them down. I feel very strongly about name calling because ever since third grade I have been tormented with the negative words of others, and it sucks. For the longest time I beat myself up about it and I believed the things they were saying to be true. Eventually I learned that the people that were saying those things were just bored and needed something to talk about and I stopped caring. I tell you all this because I don’t want you to be afraid to speak up for yourselves because you know yourself the best, not them.

Find something to smile about and keep your spirits up Northwest.