Jillian Kate Obana: “I dance in the Korean Music Dance Club – the club where you just dance. It’s fun and you could do fun K-pop dances. I just did a performance [on Oct.18], but there is an upcoming one in April. I joined KMDC because it sounded fun and I wanted to join it with my friend Leilah. My favorite part of the club is dancing and the people are really nice. We danced to songs like “Brought the Heat Back” [by Enhypen], “Hot” [by Seventeen], “Easy” [by Le Sserafim] and “ABCD” [by Nayeon]. In our performance, we had a lot of fun; a lot of people screamed and hoarded.” 

Gannon Gage: “My main goal is to bring the class together through class bonding, rallies and homecoming as well. Homecoming specifically we did a lot for. We did a lot of building for our class building. We figured out skits with freshman leadership, and we also figured out dances and that turned out really well. I also am really interested in music. My music career is kind of a bit different than everyone else’s. My dad is the music teacher at Windermere ranch, and he influenced me at a very young age to start playing my instrument. I play the trumpet, and I think, at the start, I played a lot more than everyone else, learning and growing, and that influence has brought me to this point where I’m, in debatably, the highest band [level] in the school. But I’ve kind of smoothed out into everyone else’s level. Even though my dad’s a music teacher, he’s kind of my own personal tutor too, and he motivates me. But then everyone else that is at my level also has their own private tutors. And so, you know, it just has this sort of dynamic. And for me, I’m happy where I’m at right now, at my skill level, but I know I’m improving every day.”

Arna Banerjee : “I got into wrestling in 9th grade when there was a freshman PE unit. One of my friends joined wrestling and I said ‘I should give it a shot too’ and now I’m here doing wrestling for 3 years, and I’m planning on doing it my senior year as well. It seemed like a fun sport; I wanted to do a sport to do something outside of academics and be able to blow off some steam. I [also] really like the team. There are a lot of really nice people on the team and you build a family, and also you just get so much adrenaline. Having adrenaline is a crazy feeling and I don’t think I fully understood that until I got into wrestling. It’s a really big mental sport, so if you’re not in the right mindset, it is hard to wrestle properly. I’m also really underweight for my weight class, so it is a physical struggle and a mental struggle to keep going. I don’t let myself think too much about the negative. I just keep going because if you keep trying, then what’s the worst that can happen? I forget about my worries when I’m practicing, and then when I come out of practice, everything feels a little easier. Like if I have a bunch of homework and then I go to practice and come out, I still have homework, but it doesn’t feel as bad.”

Riccarda Xu: “Ever since I was young, I’ve been doing art, I just haven’t taken classes. until after COVID. After COVID, like when we came back to school, I started taking art classes and just building off my foundations and I really liked it. I even considered it as a career option for a while until I ultimately decided that I like it just as my hobby. It’s my passion and I don’t want it  to be a job to take that joy away from me. I’ve been inspired by many, many artists, like just that I’ve seen works on the Internet, but it’s also because I feel really happy and really satisfied when I finish an artwork and yeah, that sort of happy feeling just keeps me going. This is sort of basic for like complementary colors. I especially like  oranges, yellowish with bluish purples.  I love those colors together so much. They are wonderful. It brings me joy every time I see them. but complementary colors in general, they’re just so nice to look at. To aspiring artists, so basically, at the beginning, it will look terrible. It will suck. Even as you improve when you first start a piece, it will suck. There’s no way that you can escape from the terrible looking  face. The face where you’re like, oh, my gosh, I want to claw my eyeballs out. I created this but like ew? Uh, but then eventually at some point, you’ll look at your workout like,uh, this actually doesn’t suck. I actually did decently.”