I remember, at the start of fourth grade, I vowed never to wear my hair down the entire year ponytails were just plain easier. I don't recall how that year turned out. However, I don't recollect any boys jumping when I walked by on the playground.

Things have changed a bit since then. In ninth and 10th grades, I wouldn't leave the house unless my hair was blow dried, curled or straightened. In a school the size of Grand Island Senior High, some hottie from Hottington was bound to notice me on the one day I dressed down, right? Appearances were all that really counted, eh? My senior self might have a few words for 14-year-old me.

Senioritis hasn't sunk in just yet, but lately, I've been getting a little, shall we say, lazy. Scan the halls and you'll notice I'm not the only one wearing sweats and a Science Quizbowl T-shirt. Needless to say, my philosophy on the way I look every day has changed.

A good portion of my friends who have been there all the way through high school are guys, and not surprisingly, this laid-back attitude has also earned me top marks in the drama-queen-free zone. We have a peculiar bond, but somehow it works out. They make fun of girls (other girls, mind you), and I sit back and take notes: how not to be if I want a guy to take me seriously.

This includes not wearing too much makeup, never wearing skyscraper high heels on a Nebraska snow day and not acting like every day is an audition for a soap opera. In times when my accomplices do need a little help in the lady department, I'm their go-to girl. I help decipher the code that makes us chicas so impossible to live with and without simultaneously.

Every Monday night since around mid-October, these trusted few and I have headed out on the town with one motive: to eat some hot wings. This little tradition was started by who knows when sometime last year it doesn't really matter but it has since morphed into what I like to think of as an exclusive club without curling irons, cologne or a facade. No matter what meeting, intramural basketball game or concert, we haven't missed a night of wings since it all got started.

I am proud to say that I am the girl who has been in this guild for wing eaters through thick and thin. I can honestly say that these guys are some of my best friends, and wings night will be one family gathering I look forward to when we all come home from college for Christmas break. Some things will never change, and I'm hoping the guys and I are one of those lucky few.

Enough with the sappiness. I bet if they read this, they'll puke. Just kidding, guys. But seriously, don't think I'm being a sissy.

One of the biggest compliments I've ever received came from this circle of comrades. I posed the question of why I was always the token tag-along girl. They answered with, "You're just one of the guys now, Sarah." A strange favorite flattering remark, but it sticks out in my mind right up there with, "You're the prettiest girl I've ever met," slurred by a drunk guy on the Chicago subway.

Boys will be boys, and that's one characteristic that I and any other girl will never change. One monstrous lesson I've learned this year is how to be myself. And it seems that, once you've figured out who you are, everyone else begins to take notice, too.