I remember September of 2021 pretty clearly. Out of everything though, I remember the feeling of fear, and that was what I was really focused on. I mean when you think about it, it has been forever since I’ve seen so many of these people, the people that I grew up with, but this time, when we walked into JCHS that September, we all had masks on, and we were all very distant. 

Coming into a new school, without having any socialization in a very long time was hard. I remember I wasn’t even friends with the people that I was in middle school anymore. Seeing the three grades above me was something that I haven’t seen in a while, since 7th grade was cut short due to covid. 

Over the course of the four years here at JCHS, I have made so many new friends, reconnected with old friends, and was lucky enough that I got to experience very nice teachers, who were always there for me, and my classmates when we needed them. On the other hand, I have lost a few friends, and changed in so many positive ways, which is all a sign of growth. I have loved so many of the classes that I had opportunities to take, like Foods, Clothing, Interior Dec, and many others, but out of all of them, those were my favorite. I remember starting my sophomore year and already felt more confident and comfortable with walking into school on the first day. I started to have a solid friend group, and started feeling more excited to come to school. Wearing masks was now over, and we were able to actually see everyone with no masks. It was the first year where things started to feel  normal again. 

Junior year, which was only last year, already feels like a while ago. I was often told that it was a very hard year because of the big project, the Research Paper. I was always scared of that until I actually did it, and it was much easier than everyone made it out to be. Out of all my years, I would have to say that Junior year was my favorite. I felt like that was the year I was truly happy and everything felt calm. 

Now, it is the end of senior year and the days just keep feeling like they are flying. I feel like the more and more I come back to school, I realize that we really dont have much time left here. It makes me really sad knowing that we are leaving soon because this is all we know and we are so used to coming back here for another year. But looking back on this year, I have realized that everything was a last. We had our last first day, pep rallies, spirit weeks, picture days, and now we are about to have our last prom. Being a senior just makes me realize how time really does fly. 

One thing I specifically remember was being in Peer Leaders, Freshman year, and my two peer leaders explaining how fast high school goes. All I did was laugh along with them, and I thought to myself, “Well I still have three years, so I don’t need to even think about that.” Now, being a Senior, I really do understand why they said that, and I can actually relate to it. 

If I were to give advice to the underclassman, my main thing would be, don’t worry about what other people think, they are just going to forget about it. One of my biggest fears growing up was presenting in front of a class. I was also so scared to have to get up in front of a class. I always felt like I was going to mess something up, or say the wrong thing, did I mess up while presenting, of course I did, it’s a normal thing. Overall, people will forget things, enjoy your time in high school, and simply have fun.

As Taylor Swift said at NYU 2022’s commencement speech, “ I leave you with this. We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about it on the internet. Anyway… hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it.”