“Find something you love”: Alexis Chester, Managing Editor

I have always loved paradoxes. 

For someone who struggles with science and who panics at the first mention of atoms or any of Newton’s laws, paradoxes have always been a particularly intriguing concept to me.  Try to get me to solve a force equation and I’ll probably cry, but mention the Bootstrap or Grandfather Paradoxes and I could go on and on for hours.

Paradoxes can twist your mind and confuse you until you’re not sure which way is up.  

Senior year is probably the biggest paradox I’ve lived through.

When you enter RV wide-eyed and nervous, the concept of senioritis feels foreign and false.  Seniors assure you that it is, in fact, real, and generally inescapable, but it doesn’t really reach you.  However, when you enter senior year with your bags half-packed and ready to leave, you know better than anyone that senioritis is a strong adversary.  The feeling of being done and ready to go.

It’s the first college acceptance letter and putting your deposit down on your choice.  It’s the college sweatshirts for your birthday and the Instagram DMs from fellow future classmates.  It’s the distance on the map between your home now and where home is soon to be. 

It’s the distance between you and the graduation stage, shrinking every day.

What strikes you, though, in between dorm room shopping and Project Graduation outfit planning, is the moments, the world, you’re leaving behind.  

It’s the friends that are soon to be 300 miles away.  It’s the teachers who have changed your life forever and for the better.  It’s the club you fell in love with (Holly Spirit!) and the people who make it work.  It’s the laughter filling a class that probably should have been quiet and the food hallway that smells like cookies and the conversations with teachers that had nothing to do with the subject, but had everything to do with what matters.  

The paradox of senior year is the joy of moving forward mixed with the sadness of leaving things behind.  

My advice to the underclassmen is this: embrace the paradox.  As you continue to move through high school, accept that not everything is logical or straight-forward.  You’re allowed to love a teacher, but hate a class.  You’re allowed to love your friends, but be ready to graduate and go.  You’re allowed to have conflicting feelings about this experience.  

Take chances and try new things.  Even if you feel that senioritis (or junior-itis or sophomore-itis), your high school experience is yours to make.  Join clubs (especially the Holly Spirit!!!).  Make friends.  Challenge yourself to take on responsibilities in things you love (but don’t push yourself beyond your limits).  You might find something you love enough to make it hard to go when you’re a senior.