After 13 years of hard work, it is finally here. The 2024 senior class is prepping to graduate on June 5 after a long-awaited arrival.
Personally, being a senior, I cannot wait to get out. I am ready for life to start, for things to progress and to make something of myself.
I mean no offense to the school or the teachers. I am extremely grateful for everything I have learned while at Lakeland High School, but I am also so over high school.
The repetitive pattern of doing the same thing over and over gets tiring. I’m ready for something new. I’m ready to take the next steps into real life, that path being college for me.
Compared to the first day of freshman year, I would say very few things are the same as they were that day. I surround myself with different people, I spend my time doing different hobbies and I want different things out of life.
High school taught me many skills that I will carry with me wherever I go. It taught me not to care so much about everybody else, their problems or get involved when I do not need to.
It taught me to cut the negative aspects and people out of my life. It showed me to find the people in life who will make you laugh, not make you feel terrible for your own choices and support you.
I do, of course, have many staff members to thank for how far I’ve come over the past four years. Like Michael Dunn, the journalism adviser, who taught me everything I know about reporting. His sarcastic humor never fails to make the classroom laugh, and his impact will continue to positively affect me as I continue in my journalism journey at the University of Idaho.
Or Shannon Hall, an English teacher I have had the pleasure of having all four years. Her continuous positive energy is shown in her students, and her class has tremendously helped advance my writing skills. She practices patience with her students, and it is obvious students enjoy taking her classes.
Teachers like Colleen Bevacqua, Sara Teel, Dustin Frank and Steve Seymour also make the LHS environment a better place and make coming to school every day easier.
But I am ready for something new. Although it is scary to restart everything, and the uncertainty of the future can be intimidating, it is also exciting to start the next stage of my life.
There are so many possibilities, and this is just the beginning.
For years now, the Lakeland Hawkeye has been my top priority in school and was my motivation to show up.
However, my time here is done now, peace.
