I’ve been watching and rewatching Gilmore Girls for years, the iconic comedic drama that ran from 2000-2007. It’s always been a wonderful constant in my life. It’s magical in a way that involves small-town charm, fast dialogue, and coffee addictions. 

Every next episode holds yet another unrealistic, although heartfelt, scenario that typically centers around a character completely overreacting or something insane going entirely wrong. I knew that every time I played an episode, I was in for forty minutes of refreshingly fun nonsense. There was a standard in the show, and it lay within its ridiculousness.

At least, that’s how it was until a few weeks ago, when I started rewatching the show as a junior at NASH. Suddenly, it felt like an all too real slap in the face. 

For those who don’t know, Gilmore Girls focuses on the friendship between single mom, Lorelai, and Rory, her teenage daughter. Rory’s lifelong dream has always been to attend Harvard, so when she gets a scholarship to Chilton, a prestigious private school full of the sons and daughters of millionaires and Ivy League alumni, she jumps at the opportunity.

The show comically overdramatizes the competitive, obsessive culture at the school. The stereotypical high school bullies are actually the super-intelligent, extremely talented kids who think they’re smarter than everyone else. 

In one episode, Rory gets a B on a paper and a group of mean girls say she’ll be working at McDonald’s for the rest of her life. In another instance, one student continuously mentions how he just returned from a gig on Broadway. A whole episode is dedicated to Rory freaking out about how she doesn’t have enough extracurriculars on her resume, despite being in ten different clubs.

To my surprise a few weeks, I recognized these situations, and the culture they’re representative of, in my daily life.

I’ve been in classrooms where doing perfectly fine on a test made me feel like I failed. “That test was so easy,” I remember one of my peers saying to his friend last year. “If you got a B, you shouldn’t be taking the class.”

I recall this so vividly because I got an 85% on that test, and overhearing those words did not feel good.

Several times, I’ve looked around and wondered if all my hard work even matters, because there always seems to be someone doing more. Similar to Rory, my extracurriculars don’t always feel sufficient compared to the students around me who win national contests and seem to have much more impressive resumes. 

It speaks to how weird the environment at North Allegheny is. It’s comparable to a school on TV that is portrayed to be so competitive that it’s comedic. In so many ways, that’s terrifying. 

I could write volumes on our school district’s culture, and I certainly have in the past. The reason is, I just thoroughly believe that it shouldn’t be like this. I know I shouldn’t feel so insignificant and plain and behind. 

I despise the fact that I’m so paranoid when it comes to my education. It’s as if I am compelled to always look over my shoulder and devise ways I can get ahead of the kids next to me. I hate that every success I have feels pointless in the grand scheme of things. 

It’s grueling, and it’s tiring, and it’s a fast-pass to burnout.

Granted, this all may be a self-inflicted problem, but it also seems universal. Even the kids who are ahead of everyone feel this way, and that points to the environment as the cause.

Optimistically, the whole NA experience— the superior education, the competitive climate— is preparing me for the future. Everything after high school will, theoretically, feel easier. 

Now, that may very well be true, but the logic has one flaw: I didn’t sign up for this.

It sounds spoiled, but when I’m stressed and exhausted, it’s a thought that occasionally crosses my mind. No one asked me if I wanted to be better equipped for college or my career. No one warned me that by attending a school like North Allegheny with my ambitious personality, I would spend my high school years full of worries and doubts. I was placed in this culture without knowing anything about it.