Senior year is here, and yet I do not think it has fully clocked in for me until now that this is it. We seniors are graduating this month, our final month of May, with each other in North. I did not consider myself a very sentimental person when I first came to North as a tiny, bright-eyed freshman. I was always looking forward to what I had to do next, always looking towards the clock as if it could not go fast enough for me to finally complete my goals off the mental checklist in my head. I was going to Stanford like my mom wanted for me, and I wanted to gain the teen freedom of being able to drive myself to coffee shops and a beach trip with friends, like I have dreamed of doing.
It was during my sophomore year that I realized those goals were not going to be met. In a very ADHD manner, I chose to challenge myself in every way I could. Changing my entire class to honors and AP without checking with my counselor. I had joined three different clubs: the Drama Club, Tech Crew and, of course, Stargazer. All of these factors together, and I quickly realized I wasn’t the Asian powerhouse I thought I was. My grades started to slip, especially in chemistry, and I started getting so stressed that I had my first mental breakdown in school, where I cried in front of my Geometry teacher. I now looked at the clocks on the wall, counting down the minutes I would be free from this hellscape I put myself into. Sophomore year was an eye-opener that made me question myself on what I am doing all this work for.
All the while, I kept going to Stargazer meetings every Monday, while questioning what the heck I wanted to do after I left this building of standardized tests and school-sanctioned curricula. Every Monday, I get to try something new that I find I would hyperfixate on. The club itself was welcoming enough with nice people, and learning how to write an article was a mixture of both feelings of intrigue and daunting when I got my first edits, realizing how atrocious my grammar is, a new thing I needed to work on to be worthy of Stanford. It was when I volunteered to take photos for an assembly that I accidentally took a photo that had a mixture of different surprised faces and Robert Rooney doing the worm on the gym floor. I got an email from Quinlan Kyp Johnson, who complimented me on my flunk and said she even showed it to other teachers cause that is how good I did. I cannot explain the joy I felt from that, like maybe I am not perfect at this, but I kind of enjoy this and can apparently do some neat things if I keep at it.
It spurred me to tackle any journalism opportunities the club offered, looking towards the wall of the beautiful red numbers that would tell me it was time for Stargazer. And with a snap, sophomore year ended, and I was a junior needing to pick a college and major for when I graduate. I had organized my junior year to be a better balance of work from the previous year, but I did not know what I wanted to do in college other than something in writing. I then started looking at schools that offered decent writing programs, finding myself scrolling through the journalism programs some offered.
I am by no means the best writer or the best photographer of Stargazer. There are a lot of students I could name who are leagues better than me, and in fact, I kind of like it that way sometimes. I feel like I need to constantly run to catch up to their level, but it means I can learn so much from them at the same time. I admire each and every one of the students I have met over the years at Stargazer. I have such faith in the future members who will join and the current ones we are leaving behind. Now that my time here is up, all I have to say is thank you. Thank you, Stargazer, for helping me find my passion, so that I can now study journalism at DePaul.
