August 11th, 2014.

I woke up at 5:30 in order to be at school for the first day of school rally. I put my hair in a poof and squeezed into my hip hop tracksuit, ready to perform to an Iggy Azalea mashup (I know…2014 culture was disgusting). As I walked through the hallway as a nervous freshman, multiple kids approached me and asked for directions to their first class, assuming that I knew the way when they saw my Santiago attire.

The rest of my freshman year was everything that I thought my first year of high school would be like. I went to football games, participated in rallies, took my first theatre class, saw shows, got a 4.0 and met friends that I would keep for the next four years.  

My sophomore year was a bit of a rough patch in my life. I took my first AP class, which consumed a significant amount of my time, and I wasn’t able to participate in theatre since my schedule was full. My friend group disbanded, but it helped me realize who I needed to keep in my life in order to make me both happy and healthy.

Junior year was quite an adventure and it was probably my best year of high school. I met one my current best friends, had my first real boyfriend, had my favorite teacher of all time (shout out to AP Lang icon, Stephanie Ransom!!), participated in my first musical, and all in all enjoyed my year. I found a healthy balance between my studies and my social life, which led to my success.

It is now my senior year, and I don’t know how to feel about it. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled to be attending The University of California San Diego this fall, but I am also going to miss the four years of memories that I have made. I am going to miss the football games, the rallies, the friendships. I’ll miss halfheartedly singing the Alma Mater and dressing up like a tacky tourist. I’ll never forget the distinct smell of the C building or the chaos of getting out of the lower lot after school. I won’t lie and say that there were moments where I wished I was already graduated and far from the hills above Corona, but as the school has told me time and time again, Once a Shark, Always a Shark.

May 31st, 2018.