Westborough High School. Man, what a place this is. I will be honest, when I first stepped foot in this school for freshman orientation, it felt a bit surreal. I mean, it wasn’t my first time being at the school, since both of my siblings, (Ego and Iweka) have graduated from this place, and I definitely had to be there for my brother’s sporting events. However, that time, I wasn’t gonna be here for just a tad, I’m knew I was going to be here for the next four years. As I look back on my journey, obviously, I’ve made some mistakes. Of course, there are things I wish didn’t happen or that I could change. I have lost friendships, I’ve trusted people I shouldn’t have, and even with the current friendships I have today, I wish I could go back in time and fix every single mistake so I could be the perfect friend. However, all the trials and tribulations, the mistakes, the past of my VERY LOUD stubbornness, and the times that I succumbed to peer pressure all made me who I am today. I learned to never push off your missteps, tackle the issue head on so you can improve for next time, and take it on the chin. At the end of the day, you are gonna make mistakes, and God knows me, I will keep making them along the way. On the contrary though, you shouldn’t let those mistakes define who you are or who you can become. 

If I were able to talk to my freshmen self, I would be able to give him some great advice. First, I would talk to him about his school work. To be honest, I could have locked into school more. I could have tried harder, and I really could have studied more, especially earlier in my high school years to shake off the bad habits. As far as procrastination goes, just don’t do it. I know there is always something to distract you, like NBA games on TV, your friends wanting to hangout, or just feeling straight boredom, but you just have to make sure to put your schoolwork first. Like look at me, I’m writing this testimonial while going through the strongest case of Senioritis known to man. 

High school is a stressful time and environment. You will have to worry about stuff like tests, midterms, and finals. You will have to make projects, read tons of books for English, and, all the while, you will be playing sports like basketball, football, and track, and doing Black Student Union along with it.  Balance is key. I have failed tests, done poorly on exams, messed up in class, and forgotten to do homework. Everyone does. Beating yourself up about it doesn’t fix anything. Finding that balance will unlock everything for you. It will help you do well in school, and enjoy yourself while doing extracurriculars as well. It doesn’t end here. If you look at tons of my articles, I like to express my love for black culture, and the media of it. However, you will have to code switch A LOT. You gotta protect your peace. In my case, I also had to protect my brother’s reputation who used to be the most popular guy in the school when he was here, with tons of white friends. He and my sister were like 2 of 4 black people in the entire school when they attended this school. My grade and grades below know of his existence and gasses him up too. I took the route of just keeping my head down, keeping my close circle of Westborough friends, and just letting the chips fall where they may. However, there will be times you wanna call out every single instance of culture appropriation, or the racism, or the bigotry, or all the dummies who ask for an N word pass, and when I say “No, get out of my face with that nonsense”, they say “I guess your not that type of black person.” I took my siblings advice of just keeping my head above water and just swimming to the shore with no problems, however I always wonder about if I was more vocal about these issues. 

Now, I do express them. I do call them out, but I always have to do so in this really nice manner so I don’t cause any problems. I am a Darkskin, Nigerian man named ND Iweka. I can get ostracized real quick in an environment like this. Add in seeing lots of these guys  in class and playing sports with them all year round, it gets exhausting, feeling like you have to represent a whole group of people. Som people already have this stigma around people that look like me, and it sickens me. I just learned at a young age to take the hits. I would only fully express myself in certain environments and close friends. The biggest thing I would tell my younger self is to stand your ground even sooner. Around sophomore or junior year I realized that sometimes you have to call people out when they cross a line, even if you gotta deal with all the baggage that comes with it. Throughout my time at WHS, I have seen more black people in the school, having fun being themselves. 

While I don’t always have the fondest things to say about my time here, I did enjoy the activities I did along the way. Like I talked about before, sports like basketball, track, and football helped me grow as a person and a leader. Growing up, I never really was involved with school or club sports until I became a freshman in high school, it was new territory for me. I would say the hardest part of sports is learning when to push through, and balancing injuries. There will always be times when you want to give up, not go to practice, be lazy, and just skip a day, but at the end of the day, you gotta keep going. Life won’t slow down just for you, so you just gotta learn to adjust on the fly. You should listen to your body when it comes to injuries though. Look at me, I played a football game with a messed up knee, I ended up injuring it again, and it has never really gotten better. I have spent my entire senior handicapped by this, and I will probably have to get surgery.  However, I still run, I still do sports because the competitor in me (and the stubbornness) pushes me through all of that. I am glad I did because I didn’t want to miss any of the fun in my senior year, and I got to become more open towards people and gain new experiences. I loved the camaraderie of the environment, the practices, the trolling, the food meetups after, too. I will miss those.  

Again, being here for 4 years, you learn to love this place. I grew up with this grade since Kindergarten when I moved here from Chicago. So, I would say thank you, to the friends I made throughout my high school career, to my family for supporting me in every thing I do, and for paying for all of the sports gear and school events. Thank you to my teachers who have helped me learn. Finally, to everyone on Westborough TV, Mrs.Henderson, Tim, Aidan, Ms. Smith, and Ms. Conrad for giving me an opportunity to write this testimonial in the first place. I couldn’t have asked for a better support system. 

 Officially for the last time, this is ND Iweka signing off from the Lobby Observer.