By _Luke Lukose_______________
Freshman: Sam Lazeau

“I rode my first bicycle without training wheels at the age of three. Ever since that moment, my love for bikes began, especially dirt bikes. In elementary school, I got my first chance to ride my first dirt bike. It felt so cool and unreal. It was definitely more fun to ride than a bicycle–I’ll tell you that. As the years went by, I kept getting better at riding. I don’t do it for competitions, but I ride just for fun. I like riding dirt bikes with my friends because it just relieves all the problems I go through in my life. It relieves stress and always changes my mood from sad to happy in an instant. I love dirt biking and hope to continue it in the future.”
` Sophomore: Julia Fowler
“ I have a passion for music. Ever since I was a young child, I always liked hearing different songs and I was always curious to see how instruments work in the music. I started actually playing music when I was six years old. My first instrument was the saxophone. I love the saxophone because there is just so many unique elements to it which is why it is such a great experiment to play. I would later on continue playing saxophone throughout my school years. As a sophomore, I am actually in concert band right now. I love every second of band because it is just so fun. I hope to continue playing after my high school years are over. One huge reason why I love music, is because it relieves stress. Sometimes life can be hard but music can sometimes be the cure.”
Junior: Jason Liu
“ Being Asian American has definitely shaped me as the person I am today. Being Chinese is really nice because I get to experience a mix of American and Chinese culture. Chinese culture is very different from American culture because it is very elaborate and has many traditions. There is some history that can reached for almost a thousand years back which is much more than America’s pastime. But being American has also given me a new and different perspective about life. It is really awesome to get experiences from different cultures. I know when I get older and go to college I can tell people about both my Chinese and American sides. I think it makes feel unique in a way and shows people the many perspectives of me.”

Senior: Greg Reimonn
“When I was a exchange student in Taiwan, my second host family was Buddhist. In fact they were “very” Buddhist. There was this one time were my host family signed me up to learn stuff from a monk at a Buddhist temple. The whole time I was thinking in my mind that I know nothing about Buddhism, but I told myself that I was going to try this out just for fun. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. We sat down and this one monk was talking about meditation and such. I was just like that’s great and awesome but I really had no idea what in the world he was talking about. Then the monk told me to start meditating. I asked him for how long, but then he said that’s not important. Four hours later, we stopped for lunch and at this point I am pissed. We literally was just sitting there in this dark room doing absolutely nothing all day. I did not like this all and I just hoped that we would not mediate any more after lunch. Sadly, we did for another four hours. After 8 hours of meditation that day, I realized that I was not cut out for Buddhism.”

Teacher: Douglas Scott
“ I used to be a coach and one day when at work, someone that worked with me, told me to get into teaching because he said I seem to work well with kids. I said to myself, “you know what I will try it out”. I chose to become a robotics teacher for many reasons. One big reason is because I was always a person that made things and I always like to make things work. At the same I also wanted to know why things work, so because of that I like to teach classes that are very hands on. When I was in highschool, I took a lot of engineering type courses and I definitely enjoyed them. I want to help kids experience the same type of hands on experience that I used to learn because I know they have great potential. I also want to see some changes in the robotics program. First of, I want to see more gender diversity in all engineering type courses in the school. I would also like to see students begin to realize that they are capable to doing things that they might think they can’t. A lot of the times when I talk to my students about doing different hands on activities, they always say, “well I can’t do this”, but I always tell them, “how do you know if you never try.” It takes time to learn these type of courses and I believe everybody can if they just try.”
Outside school: Deacon Anup Kurivilla
“ I never knew in my life that I would ever become a Deacon. But when I was little, I used to always serve in the altar every Sunday, so I always had a connection with my church. God put the love of worship in my heart and that love kept growing for a period of time. For a number of years, I was very active in assisting at many worship services in church. Many people at my old church felt that I should take a greater role and gave me the idea to become a Deacon. So I thought about it and eventually came to the conclusion that I should take the next step and be ordained. Being a Deacon has had a big influence in my life. I always have a sense to serve people that are in need. I try to be available to all people and not just my family. Also as a Deacon, I get the opportunity to preach. I have to learn different religious scriptures and let that out to the people who need to hear it. By God’s grace, I hope when I get older that I can look back and be happy knowing that I have made a positive influence in someone else’s life.”