Musings: Will Oakley

“For the quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things.”

Yes, that was a quote from The Lord of the Rings. If you don’t like that I put a quote from my boy Frodo Baggins, shift your eyeballs five inches towards the next column — very little effort on your part.

The point of me putting that seemingly ambiguous quote above is that in fact, yes, I am graduating high school. I wanted to make this event seem much loftier than it actually is by putting a quote from Frodo Baggins at the “end of all things.” I mean the little guy was sitting on a boulder next to Mount Doom and I’m sitting on a couch in the journalism room, eating Panda Express and musing about things that pop into my brain. Comparatively, me graduating along with nearly 400 other seniors isn’t that nifty.

Sidenote: The past tense of smite is smote. How crazy is that? So, if somebody that is in charge of me were to, say, discipline me, they would be smiting me. Then, if I was sitting on a curb in the  “Leahood,” I would say something like “Oh golly, I got smote last night.” I mean what? That’s real. A 100 percent real sentence. How about that, guys.

Anyways, back to the point. In the grand scheme of things, me graduating high school isn’t as grandiose of an event as people would make it seem. If anything, it forces me to reflect on the many dumb things that I’ve done throughout my years of high school, and give any advice on what to do with the time you have left.I wish I could enlighten you on them all, but my editors tell me I only have 600 words and I’ve already wasted 315 of them.

This is directed towards the the young men of Shawnee Mission East: try and poop in every bathroom of the school. Not only is it a journey, it’s a task that is difficult to achieve. For instance, you have the two bathrooms that are located on each floor of the main hallways. But, there are many more bathrooms that conceal themselves from the naked eye. For instance, the two bathrooms in the library, the bathroom by the pool, and the gymnasium bathroom which, by the way, has three stalls. That’s a lot of poops. Good luck, gentlemen.

Have a conversation with Jim Cumley, the substitute teacher. Behind the mad flow and chain necklace, the man has some pretty gnarly stories and advice that is well worth your time.

If you’re up to the task, take Chem 2. Yes, it will be difficult. God forbid that you may end up getting a B. But, believe me, it will be worth your time. There is no other time in your life that you will legally be able to create things like thermite reactions and blow up hydrogen balloons. If you ever want to outside of school, you can’t. That’ll get you on some kind of FBI watch list. Even though it doesn’t seem like it, the world is a lot cooler place than playing FIFA and going out on Saturday nights. Challenge yourself.

As my last bit of advice: surround yourself with the most diverse group of people that you possibly can. I’ve made lasting friendships with people that I never would have expected going into high school. I was a football captain, in IB, a member of the Harbinger, and still had the friends I normally hung out with outside of school. And I’m incredibly proud and excited to say that I am fond of all of them. The people who you surround yourself with shape who you are as a person. Why wouldn’t you want to know as many different people as you could? There are some awesome people out there. You just have to push yourself to have the audacity to get to know them.

Oh and South sucks. Got ‘em.