Rebecca Kelliher
Editor-in-Chief

I suppose, being a Convent girl, I haven’t had a “typical” high school experience. By most standards in America of what high school “should” be like, with jocks dating cheerleaders and nerds being ostracized. Convent seems a little out-of-place.

Aside from the fact that CSH is all-girls, I doubt you’d find students in most other high schools sleeping underneath tables in the middle of the school day before their next class; rummaging in the Center for food, determined to get anything and everything for free; watching rumors spread to literally every single person in the entire school, including the Dean of Students, in give or take 5 minutes; or buying wedding dresses at the age of 17 for — graduation.

In fact, my high school experience is probably more closely linked to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry than anything else. Face it — we have marble staircases, secret passages hidden in fireplaces, the ghost of Mrs. Flood lurking the hallways, and our own version of Professor Trelawney. And, to a girl who would wait every year for her Hogwarts acceptance letter with a suitcase packed and ready-to-go with all the essentials for wizardry school (including a “wand” that looked oddly similar to a dirty stick found in the neighborhood park and bottles of “potions” that smelt more like her mother’s perfumes), I wouldn’t want Convent to be any other way.

Yet when I leave this marble mansion, I know the school won’t stay locked in a timeless air bubble as if I never left. The computers will be upgraded, the Senior Table will be overtaken, the bathrooms may finally be fixed (although I sincerely doubt that will happen anytime soon), the broadview font and layout will change, the students will come and go, and even the teachers I’ve come to love will eventually say their farewells.

But a burgundy sweater will never look the same. A class of 20 students will always feel gigantic. And the marble staircases will forever echo with the pattering footsteps of the four beloved years I’ve spent in my own version of Hogwarts.

So as I now prepare to leave Convent and my not-so-typical high school experience behind me, I know that my coming to CSH has been one of the best decisions of my 17-year-old life thus far. Convent has come to mean more to me than I could have ever expected, no matter how atypical, unusual, and unconventional the experience has been. CSH is more than just my high school. It’s my home — however sappy that may sound.

Even though I am about to embark on a new phase of my life with new people to meet and new adventures to be had, I will forever remain a Convent girl at heart (pun intended). And that’s more than just a thought. That’s a fact.