EMILY COOK

Iwanted to write this goodbye, as I assume many of my classmates will, with a collection of memories that encapsulate my high school experience. But, as I sat in my bed attempting to come up with profound and engaging memories to share, I struggled to remember anything that fit the bill.

For years, I considered high school graduation synonymous with the commencement of my life. Once I entered college, I promised myself that I would join clubs, go out with friends and even research under particular professors. But, as my childhood comes to a close, I’ve found that I spent so much time planning my future that I neglected to appreciate my present.

So, as The Octagon’s in-house advice columnist, I feel it only right that I bid farewell by imparting my last piece of wisdom: live in the moment.

It’s easy to go through life focusing only on the next step.

In middle school, it’s all about high school. In high school, the focus is college, and in college, every decision can be tailored toward a life in the workforce.

But, when our only motivation is reaching the next milestone, we are never able to truly appreciate the moments that occur along the way.

Now, none of this is to say that I have not enjoyed high school, because I have. I’ve loved every pasteup, baseball game and club meeting I’ve attended.

The issue is that when I try to remember these past four years, I find that I was rarely able to be entirely present in the moment. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was always looking toward the future.

Now, with college only a few months away, I have decided not to idealize the next step in my life. Instead, I want to enjoy the little time I have left.

This summer, I want to cherish the remaining moments with my friends and family. I want to go on the day trips that I’ve been postponing since junior year. I want to read the books that, between classes and extracurriculars, I never made time to read. But most of all, I want to take a minute to slow down and recognize that life does not have to be a race.

That being said, I recognize that what I do with my summer is of little importance, but I believe my experience can be used as a cautionary tale. As high schoolers, it feels like our childhood is coming to a close, but that does not mean we should rush through it.

In fact, in my experience, some of my favorite memories came when I sat back and accepted my life as it was.

This year, on the annual Ashland trip, I, like many others, spent the week exploring the small town with friends. We ate in the town’s restaurants, shopped in the local boutiques and even met with the community tarot card reader. And, while it was no spectacular celebration, it was fun. In slowing down, I began to appreciate the small moments in my life.

High school does not have to be a stepping stone on our way to col lege. In fact, no era of our lives should be seen solely as a means to an end. There will always be an excuse to postpone enjoyment, but it is living in that way that we forget to live at all.

I was four years old when I was first asked the infamous question of, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” At the time, the answer was so simple: I wanted to be a Power Ranger, a brave hero that saves the day with his badass parkour and sick kungfu moves.

However, an inevitable dream-crushing realization of my lame human physical abilities came two years later; I could not in fact level a skyscraper through sheer confidence alone. In short, Garman’s prospective career opportunities weren’t looking too hot that year, to say the least.

Fast forward 14 years as I prepare to leave Country Day. I am once again confronted with the same question though this time, I am not so sure I have a definitive answer.

Be it prepping last-minute Mock Trial presentations or practicing for piano performances, I have always been a sort of jack of all trades, balancing my passions for activities both in and out of school.

As a result, I have always struggled with envisioning a future where I settle for one particular path. This was especially frustrating for me when it was time to represent myself for my college applications. I felt stuck at a crossroads, forced to weigh and compare my passions for so-called value deemed by admissions counselors and by the others around me.

However, the experiences I have gained and people I have met through The Octagon have made me realize that maybe that isn’t such a bad thing either.

From managing the class, producing videos and designing graphics, I don’t think I have ever worked as hard and slept so little as I did this year. Even if I did not possess superhuman powers, I still felt like I really tested my limits and broke barriers of my own human abilities (I figured the feeling of going Super Saiyan is similar to my dazed trances of staying up designing both a biology poster and a newspaper until 4:30 a.m.)

Trying to keep a tight grip over all the activities I enjoyed like music, art and videography got progressively harder as I also put in even more activities into my basket of interests. Although I truly enjoyed each of these activities separately, I’ll admit it was very taxing for me both physically and mentally.

Amid my late night sessions, I would curse the schedule I had set for myself, questioning if I had wasted my time stretching my interests too far. Oftentime, I would lose sight of why I was even putting in so much effort in the first place and instead get through the day on autopilot.

However, every time I stepped into each Octagon class, I felt my motivation being refueled once more to push forward. For a lot of us, working for The Octagon was more than just writing off an achievement to brag about; instead, it was about independently running a quality publication only made possible through our collective hard work and dedication to accurately represent our community.

I think fondly of the moments where the beauty of teamwork shone through. Despite hearing everyone’s groans of complaint throughout paste-up week, see- comfort in the fact that we as a class were able to keep the passionate flame of journalism alive for the next generations of the publication.

In the end, I realized I did not mind losing sleep if I was working toward something I found meaningful. Although my body eventually suffered the blowback of my unhealthy choices during my Advanced Placement exams (sorry, Dr. Whited, I was no match for the post-AP Spanish exam fatigue ), I could not have asked for a better experience even if I were to start high school again.

As I stand here, at the end of my high school journey, I am honestly as unsure as ever as to what I want to be. Maybe I will end up being some hotshot lawyer or maybe settle as a starving musician. Regardless of how convoluted my path and interests could be in the future, I am sure it will be alright as long as I walk forth with optimism.

So what do I want to be when I grow up? Quit asking me bruh, that’s none of ya business!

As long as I stay true to myself and carry the lessons I have learned at The Octagon, I’m sure I will figure it out somehow.

Ijoined The Octagon as a baffled freshman. Honestly, I had no clue what I was doing — and I’m sure it showed. I could never have imagined the years that followed. In the fall, I’ll be participating in the Yale Journalism Initiative, where I plan to write for the Yale Daily News or the New Journal. What began as an elective course has had a profound impact on my life.

It’s probably why writing this piece is so difficult.

There’s so much that comes to mind when I consider The Octagon. In my time on this paper, I have spent countless hours sorting through transcriptions of quotes and even longer hunting down the interviews behind them.

However, what I find myself returning to is not the grand purpose of all of that time.

Instead, it’s the small moments.

I think about passing dim sum plates back and forth at “the Obama restaurant” in Chinatown during the journalism convention; about crashing track practice with college flags and twine for a last-minute photo illustration; about waiting outside the weight room on a February evening, preparing to ambush the girls basketball team for interviews after a home game.

I think about paste-up.

The week before every print issue’s publication, 12 page editors huddle inside Room 9 until dark each night to design its pages, led by four exhausted seniors: editors-in-chiefs Simone DeBerry, Garman Xu, Adam Akins and me. We call it paste-up after the old, analog tradition, when editors used paste and scissors to lay out the stories and photographs of their newspapers.

There’s little glue involved in our process. Instead, we hunch over our monitors, muttering to ourselves about the evil of our Adobe design software, while we eat half our weight in SaveMart snacks.

By the microwave, Garman “lets the ideas cook” until Friday — when a brilliant page appears from the austere blankness of his InDesign document. Lauren brainstorms ideas for her page’s headline while I give her increasingly horrendous options. (My record rests with “SCDSPN” for a sports spread.)

Simone asks what Garman and Garrett’s hypothetical sister would be named. Brynne shows up after basketball practice, produces a masterful editorial cartoon and departs before we can trap her longer. Adam and I hold a too-long debate about the proper use of “schadenfreude” in a Taylor Swift album review. Ms. Stewart says we must be “out of here by 9 p.m.” We push her to 10.

I’ll be the first to admit that, in the moment, paste-up can be a miserable, stressful mess. After all, there’s only one tone in which people say, “It’s paste-up this week, isn’t it?”

Even so, I know I’ll miss it, just as I will miss the rest of The Octagon. I already do. The crazily brilliant moments of The Octagon make friends out of strangers and life-long allies of acquaintances. They give rise to incomprehensible inside jokes that are only really funny when sleep-deprived. They make you laugh and make you cry, and they stay with you, forever.

I’ve been told many times that the college years are the next chapter in my life. I’m not sure what that makes this time before graduation: some bittersweet epilogue, maybe, or a last coda before I vanish into the mists of faraway Connecticut.

I’ll propose a different metaphor.

Right now, I’m at the end of an article. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s my favorite part of a story. A good ending leaves you thinking. It shows you something new. It inspires you to make your community stronger.

Here’s the best part: a good ending does not demand a farewell. Rather, it takes up a corner of your mind. It sticks with you as you grow.

Now, at the very best of endings, I know what I’ll keep with me. These years on staff have been magical. They’ve taught me about truth-telling, friendship, dedication and what I want for myself.

I might leave, but I’ll never say goodbye. I’ve loved The Octagon, in all of its joys, too much for that.