Welcome to Im-Dong-Ok-Lee Memorial High School an exclusive school for the Arts, Total population: 182. So it shouldn't really come off as a surprise that everyone knows everybody else to a certain degree, exchanging hellos and good mornings as they rushed into the auditorium. A low hum could be heard as the individual chattering melded together as students, both old and new, gathered together inside the gymnasium for the Opening Ceremonies for the new academic year. Our three vice principals were already on stage together with the faculty and staff, probably discussing some last minute additions to the morning announcements.

“Hey, we have new teachers!”

I leaned in closer to to confirm the piece of information I heard over to my side, and true enough, there were additions to the faculty. Mr. Yang Hyun Suk, also known as Yang-goon when he's not looking, stepped up to the podium and introduced the new teachers one by one. Apparently the old teachers, like literally old teachers, decided to retire together, which led to a hiring of new staff...much younger staff.

“...and remember, here at IDOL High School for the Arts, we give utmost priority to the arts, and we hope that all our students, both old and new, discover many more beautiful things about themselves and the world. May we all be inspired to create wonderful masterpieces this year.”

And so here begins another year. I wonder what new things we'll discover this time.

Speaking of discovery, don't you just hate the first day of school when you’re a senior? I mean, how overrated can it get? It's the last year of high school, and we're meeting with the same people we’ve been with for the last two years of our lives. It's pretty much the same homeroom class, give or take a few people. We even still have the same seating arrangements from first year, so why was everyone making such a big deal out of it? Oh right, we get to see each other again as if we hadn't spent the winter break together as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the anti-social-emo-wrist-cutting member of the class, hardly. I just don't really get it.

You know how adults tell you to enjoy high school while you can? Like how they expect you to actually understand what they're supposed to mean. Like, “High school, the best years of your life, enjoy while you can.” And you go, “Huh? Isn't that what I'm doing?” And when you do actually go out and enjoy your life, you get accused of slacking off and not paying enough attention to the more important things in life...like studying...and...stuff. Adults make no sense. Then again, neither do teenagers. I suppose if we go by this, we can safely assume that NO ONE makes sense at all, except of course when they actually do.

Well, what else does life have to offer outside high school? Right now, I'm really dying to find out, and it won't be that long of a wait until I get a taste of what we deem freedom. Ah, university life, why must you be a year away still? That's still a year too long for me, of course...I said the same thing as a first year in high school and now here I am, walking out of the gym and towards the main building of Im-Dong-Ok-Lee Memorial International Arts School, or IDOL-MIAS for short, my home for the last three years of my life. Well, two, if you want to be about it. This would be my third and final year here, together with the class I’ve been with since I entered this school; I wonder what havoc we shall wreak.

Oh you know what I mean by havoc. Drugs, , parties, rock and roll...or not. I swear, this school has the most boring and nicest people you will ever know- of course a more valid case would be nice until proven otherwise. Nice until you push the wrong (or should I say right?) buttons. Nice most of the time, wherein by most we go by the definition of at least 80% of the time. I don't know. Oh sure we have a few bad apples, if you will. Just none exciting enough.

I ran up the stairs and stopped by room 3B to take a look at the class list and seat plan; yep, as usual I'm in class B. I entered the classroom maybe a little too quickly seeing as I was the first one there- so much for not being excited for class. It was your typical classroom, armchairs arranged 5x5, although it was more likely we'd have a few vacant seats as usual. We very seldom filled in all 25 seats in a class- we were lucky to even have twenty students at a time, which may or may not be a good thing depending on how you choose to see it. Me? I like to see it as the class half full.

Time check, it was ten minutes to eight. Students would be pouring in any time now. Most of them were already outside loitering the corridors, catching up with friends from the other class, or just...enjoying the fresh breeze and morning sun? I took my usual seat, the very last seat, where I was usually placed. Usually, meaning when seated in alphabetical order, that’s where I end up. It's a no-brainer really, with my last name, it's already a given. And as predicted, in came my classmates in their usual groups chattering about animatedly as if we were in class just yesterday. They take the usual spots as well, and seat by seat class 3B was filled. I present to you, the senior class of 2012, plus one additional member.

Last year we had to say goodbye to Lee Sunmi. Her parents decided to migrate to the US, and that was basically it. I wish there was more drama to that, like bullying, or harassment, or even an expulsion, but drama here was rare and few in between.

One of the new students from last semester year was Woo Hyerim, and since she's new, the class has yet to classify her into a group, so nothing interesting there. It's the other, newer class member that demands attention really.

Park Jaebeom.

Or Jay Park, as he prefers to be called. He's actually a year older than most of us in the class; the reason he was held back a year was because of multiple suspensions he accumulated during his rebellious third year. Most violations and offenses involved perpetual tardiness, low grades, and vandalism of school property. He was what you would call the resident Bad Boy of his year ever since he transferred in his second year, though it looks like he'll have to actually fight for that position this year with 3C's Choi Seunghyun and his group, better known as Big Bang.

So we begin with our lovely stereotypes. We have the usual, what high school doesn't have those? Some students blur the lines, while others were just the very definition of said stereotype. Sometimes I think they even did it on purpose, I never know. See, this is how it works. Each year has three sections, A, B, and C, with 20-22 students per class. While our lovely vice-principal Lee Sooman says there is no such thing as a hierarchy, we students have it pretty much figured out. The goody-two-shoes-es for our batch were placed in Class A, while the delinquents (in a certain sense of the word) were placed in C. Class B were the unclassifiables, as we'd like to call ourselves. In the end, we (my class and I) just concluded that Lee Sooman's favorite students were in A, and the others he didn't like so much he placed in C and those he didn't really care about in B.

Other rumors were afloat as well, my favorite being whoever pays him the most gets into A. Why there was such a demand to be in Class A, I’ll never understand, because as far as I knew, we all have the same classes and teachers, and the only thing we had different were the major electives we branched out into in the second semester in our first year.

Speaking of electives, there were four major art forms in the IDOL-MIAS curriculum. Aside from the basic education courses we are all required to take, each student gets to choose a major art form as his or her tracking for a future career. The breakdown is as follows: 29% are Music majors, 25% are in Dance, 22% are in the Visual Arts, 19% are in Drama, and the remaining 5% are in Creative Writing. It seems everyone wants to make it big in the entertainment industry here, which really explains the class offerings for acting and theatre. And by the course offerings alone, I'm pretty sure you can already imagine the drama that may or may not occur within our beloved corridors.

Drama, that may or may not be transpiring as we speak.

“Ok, huh, so are you one of the Heirs?”

That was Jay Park reading off the nameplate each student had pinned on his/her uniform. He was standing up, one foot on top of the seat next to where Taec sat. Jay had fisted a good amount of Taec's gray blazer, and Mr. Ok Taecyeon could only look hesitantly at his assailant from behind his thick glasses. Why was being an heir a big deal? Well, the school was founded several generations ago by the four members of the Art Education Movement way before my parents were even born: Im Hyunae, Music; Dong Chungho, Dance; Ok Aecha, Literature, and Lee Junghwa Visual Arts. Every generation, the school would have direct descendants of the founding members. This year was special as all four heirs and heiresses were all seniors at the same time,  occupants in all different sections. In our class, it was Ok Taecyeon, resident nerd, in all senses of the word nerd.

“Okay Mr. Park, settle down, you don't want to be held back another year do you?”

...and the drama ended as soon as our new homeroom teacher walked in. Ian Choe, Music. He wrote his name on the whiteboard even though it was safe to assume we all knew who he was. He was a legend here in IDOL-MIAS. He was one of those prodigies in Music, a senior when we were freshmen and he was, and still is, one of those generally good guys that would always help you out anytime you needed it. To this he acquired a pretty good following, and rightly so.

Ian- Mr. Choe took a good look around the classroom nodding to himself, “Attendance?” he said, moving in front of his table to sit on it. This was one of the advantages of having incredibly young and hot teachers, there was always something to look forward to in the morning. He lifted up the folder with our class records on it and I could see a few of the girls swoon. Mr. Choe had chosen to come to class wearing a white button-down shirt and black slacks with leather shoes. Typical wear he deconstructed by pulling his sleeves up to his elbow and forgetting the tie, leaving the two top buttons...well...unbuttoned. Which leads to many things, such as the aforementioned swooning, and now glaring from the more testosterone-driven members of the class.

Was the attendance checking really necessary? Ian knew all of us, and that's no exaggeration since he was our Freshmen Coordinator when we were...well, freshmen. Ian- Mr. Choe, I should really get used to that, started off with the first name on the list, Ahn Sohee, attendance being the only thing she'll probably ever be first in, and finishing with the last name, being yours truly.

Homeroom proceeded as usual with Mr. Choe keeping a watchful eye on Jay Park. Announcements were few, which was surprising considering it was the first day of the school year, and here I was half-expecting Mr. Choe to ask us about the winter break. He didn't, thankfully, neither did he attempt to “break-the-ice” with those silly games some teachers liked to come up with; he just left us alone. Well, he was a senior not too long ago, so I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that he knows exactly how we're feeling at this very instant, which was, as a class, everything.

At that moment, none of us would have realized the gravity of being a senior, I don't think I did either. I suppose I spoke for the class when I said that we were all here just to get this over with. To finally get out of high school and pursue even greater things, maybe even highly ambitious things. Who knew, maybe that saying taped on every classroom would have finally served its purpose, and none of us knew it just yet. Or was it just me thinking too much again?

From where I sat I could see everyone disperse into their social groups, Mr. Choe seemed to be studying them as well. Finally, a homeroom teacher who actually knows what he's supposed to do. Maybe I should give him a breakdown of how this class operates?

I take out my notebook and start on the “Class 3B Student Chart: A Survival Guide.” An old teacher once told me that it was only in your third year that you really get to know a class. By this time, everyone would have known each other well enough, and it was at this point that lasting groups were set in stone. Well, I took her word for it and had meticulously outlined said groupings per semester, taking note of each break-up and get-together. This year makes or breaks my record.

On one corner of the room, the Wonder Girls were eyeing the relatively new girl Hyerim like predators locking in on their prey. Poor Hyerim just sat there, sinking into her seat as the leader Min Sunye introduced herself.

The Wonder Girls. I wrote down their name on one corner of the sheet and right under the heading I added each member's names: Min Sunye, the leader, Park Ye-eun, Kim Yoobin, and Ahn Sohee. Lee Sunmi used to be a member before she left, and now that she's gone, I'm assuming the girls are looking for a new member to replace her in their group.

Over to the other side of the room are the bad girls who are in actuality good, the girls who like to refer themselves as Miss A: Wang Fei Fei, Meng Jia, Lee Minyoung, and Bae Suji. As usual they were positioned in their corner of the room, Min and Suzy (as she would like to be called) were in their seats, while Jia and Fei were standing up and leaning against the wall.

The boys being as they were, generally flocked together, as One Day, though most of the time it's really the subgroups and the loners that predominate as a constant state for these guys. See, why can't the other girls, others in general really, do that? All be a part of one umbrella group and be free to branch out into smaller subgroups? For the boys they like splitting themselves as 2AM and 2PM. 2AM being the “mellower” boys, but that's debatable when you have Jo Kwon, Lee Changmin, Im Seulong, and Jung Jinwoon. 2PM being the rest of the boys: Kim Junsu, Nichkhun Buck Horvejkul, Jang Wooyoung, Hwang Chansung, and Lee Junho.

Then there are the stragglers. There's Jay park, but he's new, so that leaves the 'rest' of the class if you will. That would be nerd-slash-dork Ok Taecyeon, our resident deadpan snarker Seo Minji, and another unclassifiable entity, yours truly. Unclassifiable entity seems rather harsh, no? Well, then let us rephrase that. Consider me your Jack-of-all-Trades, and yes, unlike most people, I actually remember the second half to that idiom but more on that later. I'm more of, dare I say, the more amiable member of the class. I can fit in anywhere should I choose to, but like Minji (no, not really), I choose to remain unlabeled and free from social restraints and obligations. Or in other words, I have yet to find where I truly belong in this class.