Refection on junior year

4 | OPINIONS

Senior reflects on “hardest year at Staples”

Lilly Weisz ’23 Creative Director (she/her)

“I hate junior year.” For the first couple months of junior year, anyone minorly acquainted with me would hear me say these words on the regular. I wasn’t alone in my sentiment; the class of 2023 hadn’t had a normal school year since seventh grade (mold, COVID-19), and there we were entering the infamous junior year. Steeping in fear and teenage angst all summer, I entered school already burnt out on summer homework. Due to sleepless nights and glaring computer screens, I allowed my negative expectation of Staples to become my reality. Even in my favorite classes, I could not see clearly because I was working until I hallucinated that my classmates were talking to me. en, it shifted. I was exhausted from the constant complaining, and I learned the more I pitied myself, the more I wove a false reality that I was deeply unhappy. A little like jumping into a cold pool, I eventually got used to the work and the expectations and the looming thoughts of college and growing up. I allowed my identity to expand beyond my stressors, and I let myself enjoy school for the first time in a long while. But you have to force yourself to leap.

Looking around Staples, I started to realize the amazing resources Staples offers us. What other public school has five art teachers and classes such as silkscreen and pottery; or 43 science classes taught by passionate and brilliant teachers or a school newspaper with over 100 members? When I stopped seeing my work as something to slog through, and rather as an opportunity that I’m privileged to have, my life transformed. Of course, that’s a vague statement; what did I actually do? I let myself enjoy class instead of worrying about a grade, and, subsequently, I actually had to spend less time working at home. I forced myself to contact friends and hang out. In junior year, the center of your life doesn’t have to revolve around school, no matter what people tell you. I don’t hate Staples anymore, and I don’t think I ever did. Staples helped me learn to love my life.

Staples helped me learn to love my life. - Lilly Weisz '23

FUN WITH

FRIENDS (left to right) Rebecca Schussheim ’23, Anna Diorio ’23, Lilly Weisz ’23 and Lucy Dockter ’23 celebrate Diorio’s 16th birthday in New York City. Graphic and photo contributed by Lilly Weisz ’ 23