As senior year comes to a close, it makes me think about all of the good memories I have had throughout the years at LCHS. In this last newspaper article, I just want to reflect on my previous years in journalism, why I picked my elective focus, and how it has affected my life direction. I also want to reflect on my running career at LCHS because of all of the time I spent working to improve myself.
Freshman year, Coming out of the COVID years I had no idea what I was doing and didn’t realize that my grades matter more now that I was in high school. At the time, I did not know what an honor class was and continued auto-piloting throughout the year. I was encouraged to do track by some of my friends which started my running career. This also led to me doing cross country over the summer/fall. My sister took Journalism and I decided that I wanted to take it too because I thought making the yearbook would be an awesome experience. Freshmen were not able to get into journalism so I decided to do the next best thing which was digital arts. This class ignited my interest in digital design and media and I kept on wanting to improve my skills. Overall, freshman year was a good introduction to the high school routine.
Sophomore year, I learned some of the ropes of high school and was ready for another year. I decided I should try to take an honors class to see how I could do. Once I started to surround myself with smarter people I realized that it was helping me to grow academically. This group of people helped me realize that I could take harder classes and made me continue to take these classes. During this year I had fun learning how to drive and enjoyed running, but not taking it fully seriously caused me to get injured often which took me out for most of my junior cross-country season. I started to become good friends with my track friends and found my group. This was my first year in journalism and I met lots of great people who guided me through the year. The work in journalism was different from all of my other classes and required me to become creative with my work. Once the yearbook was done, I enjoyed seeing the people’s reactions to the book and had a fun day overall with field day.
Junior year, This was one of the hardest years academically. I took lots of hard classes which took a lot of time out of my day and made me lose a lot of free time. I learned that I needed to have good time management in order to run almost every day and for the copious amounts of schoolwork I had to do. Although I was busy most days, it still felt like the most freeing year. I learned how to drive and got my permit. I enjoyed going out with my friends to eat or just hang out. This year I started to take running seriously and decided I was going to get better no matter the cost. I started to wake up early in the mornings for a run and then after school go run again. This took a toll on my body but I decided to continue and it helped me continue to steadily get faster because of the consistency. This was my second year in journalism and I started to become more involved with the group and started to become more creative. I continued to learn more and more about design and was fascinated with photography and Adobe products.
Senior year, This year has flown by and I enjoyed spending time with my friends. I spend a lot of my time running averaging 40-45 miles a week for the whole year. I was able to get to the state level in cross country and got a personal best of 17:30 for a 5k. My hard classes were mostly finished but I still needed to finish some college courses. Looking for colleges is stressful so I would recommend spending a lot of time during junior and sophomore year looking into it because it sneaks up to you. Hanging out with my friends was the highlight of my senior year. I loved going out to eat or going to see a movie creating hopefully lifelong friendships. This year working on the yearbook has made me focus on the design element of my pages. Senior year has been a joy, and I have been nervous but excited to see what my future will turn out to be.
Thanking people, I wanted to thank all of my friends I have made throughout the years at LCHS for pushing me to improve in several aspects of my life. I want to thank my mom and dad for always being there, always encouraging me, and always asking how my day at school was. I want to thank my grandparents for always wanting to help with college and my schooling. I want to thank all of my teachers, the good and the bad. I want to thank Dr. Johnston for always trying to help me learn and improve as a student and a person. I also want to thank Mrs. Wallace for dealing with me throughout these four years, helping me learn and improve, and helping me with my future career in digital media. Finally, thank you to everyone who has impacted my life at LCHS and I wish everyone the best. Goodbye!
