I didn’t join Lantern until my junior year of high school. I had always seen it as a class. I had some friends who were taking it, but I didn’t have any room in my schedule to take it until last year. Now, the end of my senior year is coming up, and my biggest regret is not joining sooner. 

The journalistic writing style is so different from what I was used to, so it was a little jarring to have to write in AP style. When I first got into the swing of it, though, I found it to be very therapeutic for me. This class has also helped me grow more as an individual. When I conduct interviews, I learned when to ask follow-up questions and how to make the interviewer feel the most comfortable, and my confidence in talking to other people has grown. The most memorable interview I’ve had was with our old principal, Dr. Andy Peltz. I had gone on a Zoom call with him, and we talked about the Momentum Meal, a tradition that he started when he was here. It was really cool seeing him again and speaking to him about something he was super passionate about.

I joined Lantern because my friends Natalie Morel and Kayla Kucharski convinced me to. I remember walking into that room and it being super packed, and there was one empty desk in the back corner of the room. Natalie and Kayla sat in the first two seats in the same column, and I would always go over to them with Megan Riley whenever we had free time, which was most of the time. Later that year, Rin Lam started getting closer to us and also joined the section with us in the room. The five of us were inseparable in that class, it seemed like. 

These people made me look forward to my last class every day just because we would always be laughing, so much so that I think we scared the other students in the class. Natalie and Megan graduating was hard because I knew I would miss them so much, but I had to look ahead to the Lantern I would be in my senior year.

Compared to last year, there were twenty-seven students in the class; this year, we have seven. It’s a different feeling walking into the class with most of the seats empty this year. But Kayla, Rin and I didn’t let the decline in students in Lantern get to us. We all still tried our hardest not only to make this publication the best it can be, but we also strived to make the class a fun way to end the day. 

I want to thank Mr. Silvidi, Megan, Natalie, Kayla, Rin, John, Matt and Kat for giving me an unforgettable Lantern experience. I’m looking back on the times we spent in class playing quiz games or just working in our comfortable silence and wish I could just savor those days one more time.