Apologies are for things you regret, and I don’t have those.

I misspelled safety, twice, in different ways, in the December 2019 West Side Story. Saftey (on the page) and Safty (on the table of contents) have haunted me. Even leading to my senior superlative, they’ve become my favorite mistakes because it led to me finding my niche in West Side Story, unfortunately at the cost of my dignity.

I have forgotten to turn in many canvas assignments, and maybe an application or two, on time. The reason I do not apologize for this is because now I have learned to write really good apology letters.

I forgot to change my zoom profile picture before going to class this past week. I was halfway through changing it when my teacher asked me about it, but I’m glad Mr. Witt’s first period AP Statistics class got to witness Mr. Frese’s face on a meerkat.

I almost flooded the West Side Story newsroom with a leaf that I dropped in the sink while pressing flowers with an unnamed smurf last year. Actually, I do apologize for that one Sara, and I should have said “attempting” to press flowers because they failed and may have caused a stain or two on the books we used.

I interrupted the Governor of Iowa. In August 2019 I got to meet Kim Reynolds, and interrupted her conversation with an organization branch CEO to mention something. Now that I have experienced the Iowan Government, and written about it, I have no regrets. 10/10 would do again.

I decided to announce that I wasn’t wearing shoes, when I was supposed to be wearing shoes, while walking right by my counselor’s tent. That’s on me, but now I know to never go barefoot on gravel, and it turned me into an actually responsible counselor-in-training who gets to live her dream of working at camp. 

I have put the words “Amy Sinclair” and “grr” in the same sentence. This may not be a mistake but it has similar justification to that of interrupting Kim Reynolds. Much like a dog barking at, say perhaps a bunny, your being “in my backyard” frustrates me.

I have made (and continue to make) my FBI agent, Isa Mcwhite, listen to the atrocity that is my singing along to music that makes me feel like the main character. If that doesn’t tell you I don’t need to be monitored, I don’t know what does.

Last but not least, I used, utilized, and placed oxford commas in this senior column. No matter how many awards The West Side Story wins for our AP Style skills, I am determined to let the oxford comma have it’s 15 seconds of fame, notoriety, and glory.

To wrap this up, and to hopefully inspire the underclasspeople that definitely aren’t reading this, my high school career was a mess. It felt like a movie and the exact opposite all at the same time. But now my mental end credits are rolling. I’m not sure if there will be a cool clip at the end of the credits, but I will miss all my partners in crime, those who helped me fix the mistakes I do regret, and those who taught me to watch from the sidelines on occasion. My list of shout-outs is too long to include but know that you are on it, and know that through the good, bad, and to add a final oxford comma, the ugly, I wouldn’t change a bit.