2014 Senior Columns

westsidestory iowa city west high school

2901 melrose ave.

2014

iowa city, IA 52246

wsspaper.com

senior columns

may 21, 2014

senior columns

Outstanding thought of the year

By Kaitlyn mccurdy Let me smack you with the truth: everyone has regrets. Whoa.

I regret letting that strange boy in kindergarten kiss my hand while we ran towards the school bus. I regret letting my classmates in junior high define my happiness and self-worth.

Them? Idiots. Me? Not an idiot.

I regret turning my back on my only friend in sixth grade because everyone else hated him.

The list goes on. But let’s look on the greener side. I don’t regret asking the shy, awkward girl in Foundations of Science to sit with me at lunch, or letting the temporarily crippled girl in Algebra I make short jokes and ask about my Beatles shirt.

I don’t regret knowing the girl who is never afraid to tell you that you suck and her counterpart, the girl that will always tell you that you’re the bestest. I don’t regret hanging out with the girl that could kick my

ass if I ever upset her.

I don’t regret unconsciously saving a seat for injured girl number two in English.

I don’t regret walking home almost every day of my underclassmen years with the girl that’s always by my side, no matter how shitty I am to her.

I don’t regret befriending the boy that confidently struts down the hall in sequined shorts, or fangirling with the lovely (horrible) lady that deleted our glorious King Arthur project.

I don’t regret watching “One Tree Hill” instead of studying for my AP tests. (I might after I get my scores.)

I don’t regret joining West Side Story. I don’t regret moving to Iowa City before freshman year.

Essentially, don’t get hung up on your regrets. Don’t waste time not being happy. End my overly sappy column.

It’s amaizeing

By Hilah kohen It seems that no Iowan may reach the age of seventeen without enduring an onslaught of heinous miscornceptions. My own four score minus 63 years have had their fill: Iowa’s flat, it’s boring, it’s all cornfields and pigsties. On occasion, these inkernal accusations appear difficult to refute; Iowa is, after all, about 90% farmland.

Fortunately, one element of the anti-Iowan agenda is cobpletely corntestable. As a parting gift, I’ve decided to leaf my homeland with a solid stalk of arguments in defense of our favorite fibrous export.

We may have starchted from the bottom, but now, my friends, we ear.

Corn has inspired farm more of your bio class than you could ever imagine. Genetic mutability?

Discovered in that plant that got stuck in your braces every summer for three years. Recombination?

Genetic linkage? Chromosomal abnormalities? Thank the almighty

cob.

Point at an object. Any object.

GMO! (OMG?) It wouldn’t be here without corn. This magazine would be in some seedrious trouble without maize in its adhesives. The toothpaste you used to scrub old kernels out of your braces contains sorbitol, which is derived from corn.

Even the walls of our Deere old West are cobered in paint that’s stalked with corn-based resins. Oh, and you can’t forget that high-fructose corn syrup.

So there. It’s amaizeing. Anyway, to top it all off, Iowa’s fielwds of dreams are often gracious enough to part for a couple of miles. When they do, they tend to reveal kind-hearted college towns where a kid can stuff her face with corn tortillas and her brain with books bound with cornbased glue. I’ll miss all that corn more than I can say. I could really wax poetic, but hey, that would just be corny.

Not so fresh By blake oetting Hello, dearest self. And uglier self.

Cut your hair, you look like a mop.

The cargo shorts need to go, along with the graphic tees from Hollister and that horrid pair of Ugg slippers.

I just wanted to let you know some things that will make your next four years smoother – things I wish we would have gotten right the first time through.

Your wild expectations of academic perfection are flawed and destructive. Geometry will not be your friend. It will grant you your first B, but it will relieve you of the 4.0 pressure that many of your friends will struggle with later.

Embrace the grade and get a pencil case that doesn’t let your compass poke through.

Those twins you compete with so fiercely will become your best friends. Trust that the people who you love the most in this world can only make you more swaggy.

You suck at standardized tests.

Take the ACT a lot.

Befriend the intimidating redhaired girl in math. You will be

surprised by how lovely that little desert pixie proves to be.

Make sure you go to school the day of Jodee Blanco’s assembly.

Stop being such an asshole to Mom. She is one of two people who genuinely care about you.

Next year on “West Side Story” staff, don’t write that column about hipsters.

Savor the relationships you will form junior year. They will be some of the most important in your life.

They are older, I know. It will be hard to see them go, but you will, I promise, get through your senior year without them.

I will rush to get a couple more pearls of warning: football games are gross, your tennis team will be lonely at the top, reach out to Drew, he is cooler than you think, and double check the cover of the April 2013 issue because it is hella pixilated. I don’t know, do you, do others, do whatever you want (see list above for exceptions) but whatever you do, have fun.

Ode to booty

By FIONA ARMSTRONG-PAVLIK

Booty, booty, booty, booty, rockin’ everywhere – including the hallway sign on the door at the top floor entrance of the most eastern staircase.

My favorite thing about West High is no longer Bosco Sticks.

Instead, it’s this act of petty defacement: “booty” scrawled alllowercase in green highlighter, barely larger than the font stating the lunches the top floor hallway is open.

No other words were added to the sign – just “booty.”

It’s been present since at least the end of the first trimester, and if any variety of school authority figure has noticed, they haven’t

done anything about it.

Is it vandalism? Barely, since it’s written on an easily replaceable piece of paper.

Is it a subtle critique of the way hallways are mercilessly patrolled and regulated during lunch? A reminder that the quest for booty is more important than arbitrary rules about which path to the library is allowed during each trimester? I hope so.

If you are the graffiti artist responsible for the booty, please hit me up. I think we could be good friends. P.S. Are you Banksy?

Never let the man keep you down. Write “booty” on more things. ¡Viva la revolución!

Advice no one will give you

By Abby Burgess, brooke lofgren and gage van dyke

Some advice is obvious. “Get to class on time,” or “study hard.”

There is advice that freshman wouldn’t necessarily think about as important or crucial to know, and we’re going to spotlight those pieces of wisdom.

Hallways should be treated with the same caution you would have if you walked in a bear’s cave. Walking through hallways isn’t exactly an easy, go-to way of getting from place to place. If your friends eat in the freshman commons, don’t be by the main office when the gates to the hallways close because the hall monitors will point at you to turn back, leading to a selfinduced, severe eye-roll that will leave you dizzy.

Don’t be afraid to enjoy the privilege of having a license. You can go to that movie premiere tonight, you can go have lunch downtown with some friends because you need a pick-me-up after that math final. Feel free to enjoy your social life throughout the week. Bring your textbooks to a coffee house and laugh with your classmates about how the coursework is

eating you alive. Go to the beach when it’s sixty degrees and look forward to summer. You can have a life while educating yourself!

Name brands. You look at old pictures of yourself on Facebook and you can’t pick out a hoodie that doesn’t have a store brand detailed on the sleeve or a plaid shirt that doesn’t have an eagle stitched onto the breast-pocket.

You’ll realize the mall isn’t your only clothing supplier, and thriftshopping isn’t a hipster side-effect.

So go, roam the dusty and stained racks of Goodwill and checkup on one of the newly opened boutiques downtown. This town caters to individuality, and you will appreciate that immensely as you find your own character through high school.

You know that sitcom you watch and always reference but none of your friends get? You know that social issue that brings the rage out of you, yet no one around you understands why? Teenagers are usually looking for relationships in their peers. While connections can be obviously made in high school

between teenagers, remember: teachers are people too. Your math teacher might love “30 Rock” more than you do (impossible? No!).

Your English teacher might workout to Wilson Phillips and share your obtruse addiction to caffeine.

Of course, you won’t find out if these are true or not unless you talk to them! Don’t ever be afraid to socialize with your teacher. Talk to them during their prep hours and hang out with them during lunch.

Growing up, your parents may tell you that people are mean to you for various reasons, but the truth of it all is that some people are just mean. Some may grow out of it, or grow up. Some will have their moments. But some people are just mean. Embrace them for who they are and what they offer, but remember that looking on the brighter side of things will always be better than the negative.

“If you don’t take AP and honors courses you are dumb and are slacking.” That is the farthest thing from the truth. Plenty of smart people choose not to take rigorous

courses because they knew the workload would be too much with all the other things they have going on. Just because you do not take harder classes than some people does not make you any less of a person than they are. Don’t forget that high school is more than just the classes you take; enjoy the time you have while you have it and enjoy your experiences and the people around you.

Some people don’t often realize that high school will come to an end, it is easy to get sucked into the drama of high school. You may not always be able to rise above, but remember that high schools is (I hope) only four years of your life. Looking back, ten years from now, you will realize that the things that once stressed you out or put you on edge are no longer in your thoughts. Try not to take everything too seriously, because eventually these four years you have at West High will end and you will move on.

folks), it would not be wise to skip one of the last assignments.

But I guess I realized that maybe those others things aren’t that important. It’s not like getting a low score on the AP Psych test or a hockey game (I will grudgingly admit) is going to radically alter my life. But high school, in some way shape or form, did. And the people that did alter parts of my life need some thanks for that.

To Mrs. Shullaw: I will admit I was terrified of you the first few weeks of freshman English. But since then, you have been one of my favorite teachers. Not only did you help me improve my writing skills, you taught me a lot of life lessons. You taught me to stand up for what you believe in and what

you want, and to not be scared to do it.

To Ms. Secrist: I never told you this, but you were also one of my favorite teachers. You made me love biology, and I enjoyed every second of class. I learned a lot from you and I hope to make someone like something as much as I liked bio.

To Amelia Moser: We’ve been friends for fifteen years now (Holy crap, it’s been that long!). Even though we aren’t as close as we were then, we’ve always found new things to bond over (that summer we watched Disney movies, our mutual hatred of the Pittsburgh Penguins). I guess this is just a thanks for putting up with me for all these years. I hope to always be

your BfotKM (Best friend other than Katie Mons).

To Abby Hellem: Thank you for inserting the word “holla” into my daily vocabulary.

It took me writing this column to realize how important high school and the people who I went through it are to me. I hope you guys realize that too. Holla.

Appreciation By lydia hinman I don’t even want to write this.

I have so many more important things to do than reflect on than my high school career. I could be studying for the AP Psych test...or watching hockey (yes, Mom, it is VERY important).

I was very unhappy when I learned that I would be required to write a senior column. I made it my mission to debate the necessity for it. Of course, you can see how well that went. (FYI, don’t try to argue about things like this with nationally ranked (I think) debater Amelia Moser. It won’t end well for you).

I toyed with the idea of boycotting the column-writing, but since my grade in newspaper hovers around an 85 (that’s really sad,

Things we love about Shullaw

Partial reboot

By anna mondanaro and julia truszkowski

By danial syed

With rumors of scathing essay critiques and tear-stained pupils reluctantly being ripped away from their cherished 4.0’s circulating year after year, students might have as much to say about her as she does about “The Awakening.” Some of us make her into a menace far more terrifying than a woman just over five feet in stature wearing puppy dog shoes.

Some of us hope that an A+ in ass-kissing will directly translate to an A+ in Am. Lit. But a select few of us won’t even hesitate to break the sacred “students vs. teachers” rule to proudly defend one of the most inspirational teachers West High has to offer: Margaret Shullaw.

The name alone just sounds excellent. But, if you know Mrs. Shullaw, then you know that she is much, much more than excellent. She is exemplary. She is an amazing teacher, mentor and--more than anything, friend.

Mrs. Shullaw begins each class, each year with the same quote: “A friend is one before whom I may think aloud” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). At the beginning of the year, the quote seems almost insignificant, hanging written on an otherwise-blank white piece of paper on her front chalkboard.

However, as the year beats on, this piece of advice becomes crucial to the survival of her rigorous class. I (Anna) remember sitting in my seventh period American Literature Honors class and realizing what a special community it truly was. A group of students, all from varying intelligence levels, income levels, and interest in literature all gathered in one place to listen to an extremely wise woman talk--er, think aloud, about books.

Instead of spending two hundred characters fumbling for the right words, we compiled a short list of the things Mrs. Shullaw has taught us: 1. You choose your relation-

ships--be wise in deciding who you have them with.

2. It’s okay, if not encouraged, to be unconventional.

3. “The most important thing in life is knowing what to ignore.”

4. There is a difference between being a bitch and being honest.

5. Don’t be afraid to live in light of your convictions--defend your beliefs and always, always address conflict upfront.

6. Never conform. Society is the harshest critic, and most of the time, it’s wrong.

7. Every student is capable of working hard and reaching great achievements if you show them you believe that they can.

import com.example.syedsbrain.R; public class of2014 extends FinishStrong { public final static String GRADUATION=”com.college. partialreboot.GRADUATION”; @Override Do you remember getting asked to Prom by some stranger on the Dance Team, saying no (cooties, amirite?), then running away— your best friend at your side— singing the lyrics of “John McCain and his Vegetable Friends?”

Okay, maybe that wasn’t one of your freshman-year-memories (be grateful). But I’m sure you’ve got plenty of your own. How about…

String Stoppingtheteachercuts=he artwarming; String GuysandDolls=amazing; String Friday=stillcantdecidewhic hseattotake; …? Well, I’m sure there are more. Some are from 9th grade, but a whole lot are not. I probably don’t know the slightest bit about any of them. But they’re there.

And they impact your life— fprintf(“Until Graduation!”); —graduation is rebirth, a reboot.

New place, new people, new rules.

Some of our high school memories fade, and others cling to us stubbornly. Some of us remember high school as the time of their lives, others as worth forgetting. But without the slightest doubt, we’re West High schoolers no longer.

Sort of. private void totalrebootimpossible() {

A tall and a short are best friends.

The short goes to Yale,

and the tall goes to Brown,

and the tall and the short never quite meet again.

But then the short meets

a tall, and the tall meets a short, and

—twice again—

A tall and a short are best friends. { Clickity-clackity-click, little bits and pieces stick, the friends we’ve had, the lessons we’ve learned, the habits, some good and some bad, Clickity-snickity-snick. {

Don’t worry.

You have your diploma.

You’re far from home.

You’ll never have to relive the embarrassment,

of spilling coffee all over your principal.

But for the rest of your life,

wherever you go,

people will ask,

“Why do you leave your latte’s lid on?” }}} So I guess that’s that. We’re partially spilled.

A lot of my essence has yet to exist, has yet to be poured into cereal, or into a glass, or into whatever the future may hold. But some part of it, however big or small, has already been stone-set atop a green and gold tabletop.

West High’s class of 2014 won’t end on the 22nd--because each and every one of us will re-create it, little by little, throughout our lives.

And I think that’s beautiful.

After all, take a good look at that college campus of yours. Then remember the classes. The clubs.

The sports. The gorgeous, greenerthan-green lawn and awesomerthan-awesome people. Then close your eyes.

Doesn’t it look a little like West High? } end (well, not really)

Senior reflections By tyler voss As senior year comes to a close, we all try to remember the amazing memories we have had in these halls for the past four years.

Like not being able to get across the hall to your locker because of the constant stream of people jamming the halls, and of course, our all-time favorite memory of getting a parking ticket because there wasn’t a single parking spot left in the back lot. These we will cherish for a life time.

Besides those delightful memories, you all know you will miss that girl you sat next to in math class that you soon began to tell your deepest secrets to your freshman year and before you

knew it you were best friends. You soon began to branch out of that close knit circle of friends you formed in junior high.

You might have met them in your favorite club you joined or the sports team you practiced with day after day. The 2000 students that made up this diverse school became what you saw every day you entered into these halls. You soon began to know where you belonged and who you could trust. After four years of finally perfecting the social aspect of this school you now have to leave all that you know behind.

When this summer comes to a close we will all be going our

Excellence is a tradition By meredith cullen I never fully realized nor appreciated how great West High is. Sure, it is continually one of the top high schools in Iowa and is even nationally recognized, but being surrounded by intelligent, involved and dedicated classmates, my perception of reality was warped. I thought it was normal to be in five AP classes and participate in seven different organizations. That’s what everyone at West did, so that’s the same everywhere, correct?

Well, no. I didn’t realize how exceptional our student body is until just months ago when college decisions were mailed out.

The anticipation was killing me, wondering what my chances were of actually getting in to these great places. Then, finally, letters were opened and Facebook was clogged up with exciting statuses.

It took me some reflection to realize how talented students at West are. Our class was accepted

separate ways. Traveling the world, pursuing our talents, becoming a D1 athlete, going to a BIG ten school, or simply going to the school of your dreams is where we will all be headed after the next three months of constant fun and excitement with the people that have occupied your life for these past four years. Don’t let this final hurrah with the people who know you the best go to waste.

Secrets By rebecca wen

into some amazing schools, ones that I thought just mere months ago were out of anyone’s league. Yet West High students would now be attending these world-renowned universities. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

It took me four years to realize how many great opportunities West High and the Iowa City community has to offer. But you can’t just sit back and hope they will rub off on you. It’s certainly hard to feel accomplished in a pool of 2,000 other talented students, but if there’s anything I’ve learned at West, it’s that you have to take advantage of the opportunities that come your way and work hard. You have the resources to succeed but you have to be willing to use them to make your future how you want.

There are sine things I’ve been meaning to get off my chest.

1. I once choked so hard on rice that it spurted out of my nose.

2. I have a secret tumblr.

3. The one time I’ve cried in school is the day my dog died.

4. Just kidding, I also cried a little when I ran my hip into a desk during biology.

5. During my sophomore year, I googled “hipster music.”

6. On that same day, I also googled “hipster clothes.”

7.When I was a freshman, I vowed to never be a glum and haughty senior like the ones I saw.

That vow was broken.

8. Sometimes I watch Korean dramas. Ten episodes at a time.

9. I decided to stop eating pork three years ago. But since then I’ve eaten pork perhaps a dozen times. (Basta had really good stuffed dates that are wrapped in

pancetta).

10. I pretend to be knowledgeable about Harry Potter, but I’ve only read the first 3.5 books.

11. My kindergarten crush was Alex Ko. 12. I don’t really like cookies.

#firstworldproblems By matt murry I love the Internet. I constantly visit Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. Full of cat videos and .gifs of people falling and memes, the Internet never ceases to make me laugh. But there’s one meme, one hashtag that I don’t think is funny. #FirstWorldProblems. Here’s why.

I didn’t always feel this way. I thought they were funny. “Not being able to get WiFi in the basement because your house is too big” is funny, right? “I missed tonight’s ‘Walking Dead’ because I forgot to change my clocks on

Daylight Saving Time” made me laugh. It’s clever, and they were just jokes, right? Wrong. #FirstWorldProblems is an insult. It insults people in countries less fortunate than ours.

Even though it’s intended to be satirical, it still sends the same message: “These are the problems that I worry about.” The world is more connected than ever. People from Africa, Asia and South America can see every myopic, self-centered post we make. It is wholly possible that people in

“third world” countries might not recognize the intended satirical nature of the memes. This in turn could contribute to the declining image of the United States as a rich, self-centered group of spoiled individuals.

What’s the difference between “first” and “third” worlds? And is there a “second world”? These terms are actually a product of the Cold War. “First world” was used to describe countries aligned with NATO. “Second world” was used to describe communist Russia, China and their allies. “Third world” was reserved for countries that didn’t align with either power.

Yes, this included much of Africa and South America, but also

was also composed of Sweden, Switzerland and Austria, high ranking countries on the UN’s Human Development Index. We are blindly grouping together countries that are nothing alike, all under the absurdly general term “third world.”

In reality, our problems are far worse. We are dropping on almost every scale of development except military spending. We are over 17 trillion dollars in debt. People in our own backyards struggle to put food on the table. Those are the real #FirstWorldProblems, not “Someone didn’t refill the Brita pitcher and now I have to wait 30 seconds for water.”

Opposites attract

Oh, dear (diary)

By katie mons and amelia moser

By apoorva raikwar

You probably don’t know us, which is okay, because we’re finding we don’t really know any of you.

Side effect of being asocial with no friends. Us, not you. Anyway, this is the love story of Dum Dum (like the lollipops) and Loser (of Things).

Amelia is a hyper liberal atheist with a Red Sox obsession. Katie’s a super conservative pastor’s kid whose loyalty lies with the St. Louis Cardinals. Despite those minor differences, somehow we fell in love (or became best friends) sitting in Sara’s newspaper classes.

But we have to tell you, the World Series last fall was a little rough on our relationship.

Back to the whole religion thing.

That’s not really that small a thing to disagree on, but we make it work.

Amelia constantly gets confused and asks questions (I, Amelia, can now explain the difference between an apostle and a disciple, if you’re ever curious). Fortunately, I, Katie, am not offended by my friend’s … utter stupidity. Amelia would like me to add that I’m also not nasty about Amelia’s poor church attendance record. Instead, I am

With the end of senior year here, I decided to reflect on the past few years by looking through my diary entries.

March 10, 2010 (8th grade) “Well I‘ve got an important decision to make. Go to Morgan’s Birthday Party for a few hours or use those 2 or 3 hours to study for the SAT.” Two things: 1) Why are you taking the SAT in 8th grade? 2) Get your priorities straight.

October 8, 2010 (9th grade) “Yeah there was Homecoming. It was boring as HELL.” Atta’ girl!

October 12, 2010 (9th grade) “Tomorrow there’s a math competition. Mrs. Muhly basically made me go to it even though I got a 75% on the last test …

OHMIGOSH. So I have a 89.654% in math right now and there are 4 weeks of the tri left. I need to bring it up so I don’t, like, completely ruin my high school career.”

You were doing so well.

April 15, 2012 (10th grade) “Bucket List: 4. Get front row tickets to a One Direction concert.

9. Learn to walk in stilettos.

10. Go to college out of state.”

blessed to have a friend who is curious but respectful about my faith.

We’re not very good at living by ourselves. In fact, we can’t go three hours without talking to each other. Life’s a struggle. From boys to school probs to #wehateeveryone, navigating the big wide world is impossible without talking to the other person. So, good thing we’re going to colleges 1278.4 miles apart? Katie didn’t realize how far it was until right now and now she’s sad. Oops.

Luckily, our respective families have adopted both of us. Amelia is ALMOST tall enough to qualify as a Mons, and Katie’s sassy enough to belong with the Mosers. That’s all that matters, right?

So when you go off to do whatever amazing thing you’re doing next year, don’t forget – sometimes, opposites attract! LOL jk Amelia’s allergic to cheese (but actually) so we can’t end on that. The point is, best friends are hard to find, and you’re making it more difficult by looking for friends in people who are EXACTLY. LIKE. YOU.

4. Thank god that never happened.

9. Nope. Comfy old people shoes all the way!

10. Looking forward to being a Hawkeye next year :) December 4, 2012 (11th grade) “First of all, I think the world might actually end on December 24 because it was like 70 degrees the other day and it still hasn’t snowed once.”

Please be kidding.

January 07, 2013 (11th grade) “I’ve been bored lately so I applied to be an ASM (assistant stage manager).”

You won’t regret it :) January 30, 2014 (12th grade) “I recently found out that Dairy Queen sells individual ice cream cakes in a cup.”

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that!

As I read through my diaries, it was interesting to see exactly what was going through my head at the time. I encourage all of you to keep a journal and and jot down your thoughts whenever you can.

You won’t regret it in a few years when you decide to finally dust off the cover and go back in time to meet your younger self.

Words with friends

On track

By hannah merrill and Shirley wang

By stephon berry

Amirite: Used to get approval.

Must be followed by “Lol sorite” or else yeah, try again.

Bitties: Something you call your closest gal pals, which is better than the alternative naughtywordthatalsostartswithab.

Also good for announcing “the bitties have arrived” when you walk into a classroom together.

Blue wavy shirt: Should never be brought up in AP Econ, no matter how hideous it is. Unless you want to regret it for the rest of the year.

Blonde: Not the best to be if you’re ever in one of Bach’s math classes.

How many blondes does it take to derive e^x?

Bz gn: The only proper way to say goodnight to a friend and relay that you love them. (*Note: “bz” stands for “bisous,” French kisses on the cheek).

Estrogen night: A girls-only night with Essie nail polish.

Fourth floor: Went up there once, saw two people and left (we’ll leave out the details).

Gucci: How you can describe most good things. (*Note: should not be shortened).

High Ground: A coffee shop we can never go back to because a. we are loud b. we talk about inappropriate things and c. we are loud.

Also see Tierra: Another coffee shop that we ruined. We like coffee shops. But coffee shops don’t like us. :( iParty: The group message for all the hip kids who have iPhones.

Lololololol vs. lol: It’s important to differentiate between the two when texting, so as not to add confusion. “Lolololol” should only be used in cases when you literally are laughing out loud. “Lol” is more for humoring your friends. But really, the joke was just kinda funny.

(Sorry if that offended anyone.)

“Okay bai”: Must be said in a high, nasally voice. Meant to be used for dismissing boys.

Swag: A word that is appropriate for everything, still relevant and can be used as a noun and verb and adjective.

Your mom: Always a good comeback.

At the first track meet I ever ran for West High School, I was put in a race with a junior. I was only a sophomore and I was meant to run the 400 meter dash, my first 400 meter dash. Assuming that I’d be destroyed and embarrassed in the process, I walked out and positioned myself in front of the blocks with my chin threatening to crack my sternum. Now that I think about it, he must have had those same thoughts. After all, he was put in a race with an underclassmen.

I’ll try not to digress so much. In the end I believe he won the race very narrowly, by maybe a half second. 59 seconds is what I ran.

That was when I knew that running was something I’d want to do for the rest of my high school career.

It was the beginning of my love for track; a guessing game.

Skipping ahead to senior year and the close of my high school track career, and I have to say this year has definitely not been the smoothest schedule-wise. The year got off to an awful start with tons of tardies and AP Chem mind warp.

The middle wasn’t much better, and there was the added stress

of encroaching college deadlines and my mid-senior-year crisis to complement it all, but things started looking up third tri and the acceptance letter from Lawrence accompanied by a $16,000 scholarship definitely didn’t hurt my spirits. Retrospectively, I’m incredibly grateful for the amount of understanding my teachers exercised (especially you Ms. Wiesley, and you Mrs.Whittaker) because I definitely gave them a workout.

Knowing that I’ll be continuing my track career in college is something that’s brought me a sense of safety. Not everything is changing; track remains that one constant. I may not have known how high school would turn out, but I’m glad I saw it through, and I’m happy I had someone to give me a reality check. Sometimes life’s only as shitty as you see it. To paraphrase the band Lucius, “Stop looking through the wrong end of the telescope and turn it around.”

No one can ever predict how an event will unfold. “It’s a metaphor.”

That’s what I love the most about it.

What to expect when you’re expecting too much By velarchana santhana I’m a serial expect(er).

The night before my first day of high school, I couldn’t sleep and my mind raced. Based on my few (and at the time I believed reputable) sources about high school (“Mean Girls” and Phyllis Reynolds Naylor) I envisioned everything that was going to happen the next four years.

I’d get straight A’s so I could get into an elite school that Indian parents would approve of, I’d have a boyfriend or two, and I would stay best friends with my best friends from junior high.

And you know what? None of

those things happened. I lost my 4.0 GPA junior year, I didn’t end up getting a boyfriend, and I slowly drifted apart from some of the people I thought would be there forever. I expected too much.

When I realized my pre-high school expectations weren’t going to pan out, I developed a mantra: “always surprised, never disappointed.” The idea was that if I set my expectations low, any good things that happened would be pleasant surprises. This worked for a while, but eventually I would set my expectations so low that, frankly, I ended up not believing

in myself.

At a certain point, I realized that there had to be a balance (Eureka!).

By expecting too much, I ended up disappointed, and when I expected too little, I also, somehow, ended up disappointed. We really need to just expect that things are going to happen and never work out exactly how we want them to.

In no way am I saying this is easy. In fact, it’s probably one of the hardest things to do. But I do know that some of my favorite memories from high school (going to Wickham after the AP Euro test, volunteering with patients

in the pediatric unit, stargazing after homecoming senior year) occurred when I had absolutely no expectations.

One of my favorite quotes from Alfred A. Montapert is “Expect problems and eat them for breakfast.” I’d like to add on to that. I’d say, “Expect problems and eat them for breakfast - but also don’t be so expectant for problems that you don’t eat the bacon in front of you.”

Am I Plato yet?