Senior columns

  As I am sitting in my last class of high school, smiling behind my mask, a bittersweet feeling iis pricking my heart. I will no longer stand in line for lunch, I will no longer see my younger peers and get to wave at them, I will no longer have one building to contain everything I call ‘school’. I started this roller coaster ride known as highschool, hating every aspect of it; it stole so...

Soon, I’ll be living 1,885.3 miles away from where I’ve lived since I was born. Even though I’ll be physically far away, I want to leave some wisdom here so it can be trapped in these pages for you to take with you.  Here’s the thing: high school is a movie. It’s an action, drama, romance, and thriller movie where the 15-18-year-olds are played by 35-year-olds with fully formed frontal lobes a...

Four years ago, I walked into what used to be the dark and damp newsroom with my camera and the hopes to make it big in the world of West High athletics alongside the legendary Joe Goodman. Every day during Foundations of Journalism, I would make my way into the newsroom in search of one thing — a cookie from the box that sat in the newsroom. Shoutout to Grace Christopher: some might say it was the only re...

Life can be told in acronyms, like the title of this senior column: “This Is My Senior Column” (TIMSC for short). Even though my four years at West were anything but short, I will try to keep this senior column brief by using acronyms.  WSS — West Side Story. No doubt the best activity to be involved in at West High. So many memories were made in Room 111 with some of the most hard-working...

To the naïve, anxious, freshman Zoey who was deathly terrified of the peering eyes of others, prioritized a singular letter grade over all of their emotional necessities, and had sadly trudged through the majority of their life with no purpose — you would be so, so unbelievably proud of who you are now. Four years ago, you couldn’t see yourself living long enough to graduate high school. You...

It seems like only yesterday I was braving my first day of high school. Terrified freshman me spent that day tripping up the stairs, convinced I wouldn’t make any friends. I remember coming home exhausted and dreading the coming days of this new era.  As it turned out, high school was more survivable than I expected. I managed to pass my classes, meet people that became best friends and find a pl...

For as long as I can remember, my mom has loved to assemble puzzles on the coffee table in our living room. To me, she’s a puzzle master. And her secret? Taking lots of breaks. She tells me that time helps all the pieces come together. “Take a step away, then come back to it,” she says. “You can see the bigger picture that way.” Although not a puzzle whiz like my mom, I’d consider...

This senior column is my first piece of writing for the WSS — ever. Limited Edition. Looking back on my four years of high school, the only expression that comes to my mind is "oop." Oop for my freshman year, when I was in the Speech and Debate Club and spent an average of four hours every day writing cases. Time management and prioritizing are excellent skills to learn, guys. Oop for my sopho...

If I swam outside the circle of my father’s arms, I would drown. I knew this because I was an educated 5-year-old, and educated 5-year-olds know that life jackets are useless without the magical powers of a father’s arms. But my dad always reminded me that strength means nothing without fear, and so the day he let go of me for the first time, I took a big breath and held it, sure it would be t...

You’d think that after four years I’d finally get over my procrastination and learn how to manage my time, but here I am writing this hours before the deadline … classic me <3.  High school at a glance: freshman year I was hit with the realization that tests were now every week, not month; sophomore year I found out that homework can actually be hard and require thinking; junior year I...

My review of the recently concluded television series “The Trials and Tribulations of High School,” starring Madeline Smith. This series premiered in August of 2018 and the series finale will air on May 29, 2022.  Season one: Freshman Year Plot summary: SCENE ONE- AUGUST, CAR- The pilot opens with a young girl, about 14, sobbing violently in a car as it drives away from her hometown. She...

Ah, Kailey, how you love the past. You’d think with how much you reflect on it that you’d be excited to write this column, but here we are, having an existential crisis. I know you’re a planner. Yes, I see that 8-year-plan document and that “List of all of the things I’ve done, ever” that you dreamed would give you some semblance of meaning and worth. So it’s going to freak you out w...

This will sound original, but it doesn’t feel right to be graduating high school. I think that has something to do with going on spring break for a year and a half. I, and a substantial amount of other students, left West High in March 2020 and didn’t cognitively or emotionally return until the first day of school this year.  Thankfully, I was cognizant enough during my junior year to pass...