It’s the end of another glamorous year at Animo Pat Brown, and it could not have come soon enough. We have all worked hard this year to maintain APB as great as ever. But new year means new ninth graders, and new ninth graders threaten the hard work of previous years.

Freshman are always causing shenanigans in the school. Whether it is messing up the bathrooms or simply laughing extremely loudly during lunch.

Let me just talk about the bathrooms for a second. Every day around sixth or third period, I get an urge to go to the bathroom and no, I will not go during lunch because I just don’t want to go. But apparently the men’s rest room are so defaced and filthy that they must now be closed during passing period. I have even tried filling a complaint, but the office simply gave me a key and urged me not to allow anybody else in. To anyone reading this who has decided to write their street name in crayon on the bathroom walls, please stop it. I want to pee.

They come to High School with the same mentality and attitudes they got in middle school. In most middle schools, their actions and behaviors were probably not as closely monitored and regulated as they are here.

Back to the point. Ninth graders. The most undeveloped minds of the school, always running around and screaming. Maybe not like that, but they might as well. Don’t get me wrong, I was a pretty weird ninth grader too. But I knew my limits. Maybe I’m just becoming over critical because I’m getting older. Either way, these ninth graders need to act more mature.

One time, I was peacefully eating my delicious Revolution Foods sandwich while conversing with my friends. When, out of nowhere, a group of ninth grade girls take the benches next to us.

Without warning, one of the girls takes out a needle and begins to pierce the girls lip. What? Are you serious?! I’m trying to eat peacefully and you want to pierce a girl’s lip in front of me?

The moment I saw them start to pierce it, I got up and I told them, actually I screamed at them, to leave. I told them that I was trying to eat and I really was not in a position to watch one girl make some other girl bleed to death in front of me while I eat my sandwich. They looked at me and laughed. They eventually left without even piercing her lip, which is a good thing because I would have freaked out if they had actually done it.

To any new ninth graders who will be reading this. Please do not act like a wild animal. This is a school, for learning, not for playing… nor piercing lips. Yes, you’re young and we all know the motto, but there’s a time and place to exercise that and school is definitely not one of those places.

There is plenty of responsible ninth graders out there that act appropriately, and I salute you because I wish I could have been like that as well. My middle school attitude cause me to do poorly in some classes and now that it’s almost time to apply for college, there is nothing I can do about that C in physics. It’s simple things you can do that will affect your entire High School and College experience. Drop your attitudes and do work.