February 2002
SNN Reporters
news
opinion
profile
entertainment
arts and expressions
about SNN
newsroom
classroom
magazine archives
links

OPINION

Friends and Friendships For Life?
By Elizabeth Lowe, Level III student, Roncalli Central High, Port Saunders, NF

Listen to audio file  

When we are young we make ‘friends', but as we grow older we have best friends. With your best friends you share stories, secrets and memories that last a life time. We form a special bond that cannot be bought or sold. These friendships are most apparent in high school, when a lot of your time is spent with your friends by just being teenagers, making memories and sometimes getting into trouble. Whatever happens you have someone to call, someone to trust, and someone to depend on.

It's undebatable that your best friends are always there for you throughout high school, but what about after high school? Do you keep in touch? Do you attend the same school just to be there together? Do you have the same bond that you have shared for the first half of your life? Or is it over and do you move on and make new friends? These questions stir up various emotions in different people. Some people have different opinions and believe that they will be friends forever.

Dawn Beaudoin, class of 2001, said "I don't keep in touch with as many people as I said and thought I would, but we're all separated and it's hard to keep in touch with everyone I was good friends with over the years. Over Christmas and other holidays we see each other and with some people it's as if we were never separated and with others it's as if we were never really close friends. As we spend longer amounts of time away it seems as if we grow farther and farther apart."

Most people who have graduated in the last couple of years are still in contact with a few of their friends from high school. But what happens after 4-5 years of university? What happens when you start a career and a family? One of the teachers at Roncalli told us about the old saying ‘The friends you make in high school are for high school and the friends you make in university are for life'. This saying gave some people mixed emotions about the future. And made us wonder about our best friends, the people we have spent the first half of our lives with, would they be a part of our future?

Mrs. Shelly Greene, guidance counselor at Roncalli, said "In grade 12, you always believe that you won't lose touch. Even though people tell you that you will, you are so sure it won't happen. It does happen. It doesn't mean that you don't think much of your friends, it is just that you aren't exposed to them the same way as high school allows."

Despite everything we've been told, despite everything we know is probably going to happen, there are a large number of students , ‘friends' that believe that despite the odds they will keep in touch and be just as close in 10 years as they are now. Dawnie Gould, a grade 12 student who is graduating this year, said "I know what everyone say is going to happen, but I feel that I will be just as close to my best friends next year as I am now. We are really good friends and no matter how far away we get from each other I know that they will always be there for me and I will always be there for them."

A friend is someone we turn to
when our spirits need a lift,
A friend is someone we treasure
for our friendship is a gift.
A friend is someone who fills our lives
with beauty, joy, and grace
And makes the whole world we live in
a better and happier place.

Poem By: - Jean Kyler McManus -