ELISE

Elise suffered from a rough social year at South, believing that “social crap” had her feeling lower than ever. However, this summer has helped distract Elise from her social struggles.

Elise has spent most of her time this summer working at Children’s Hospital and believes that her time there keeps her mind off of the troubles that consume much of her life.

“It keeps me preoccupied,” she said. “In the summer I don’t like to be sitting around doing nothing.”

Though she believes the summer is almost always relaxing, Elise’s problems in her family life can sometimes lead to some summer night fights.

“Most of my issues are family related, you can’t really get away from that,” she said.

For the most part though, she finds that summer is a time to rehabilitate and to organize herself for a new year.

Elise’s summer job does just that, allowing her to escape her usual life.

“[Because of] all the social crap, I got really screwed over this year in my social life, so it was nice to get away from the people who pretty much destroyed me for quite awhile,” Elise said.

She believes that getting her mind off her usual problems is best achieved by constantly keeping herself busy.

“It’s not healthy to over-analyze stuff,” Elise said.

Though she views preoccupying herself as important, Elise does not use schoolwork to do so. Last summer, she saved all of her summer work until the end of the vacation, and soon regretted it.

“Sometimes teachers give an excessive amount of summer work … so if you plan out your summer … and organize schoolwork very well, it can make life very relaxing,” she said.

Overall, Elise has found that summer is almost always relaxing, even after a tough year of social and family issues.

NINA

Though many attend summer for new experiences and friendships, sophomore Nina found the social scene at her camp to mirror the one at South. Nina only realized this summer, however, that the “snobby, cliquey” people at her camp, who she feels reflect the sophomores at South, were not worth going back for; and spent her first summer in three years at home.

“I always ended up liking [camp] the last week,” Nina said, explaining why she had continued to attend the camp the past two summers. “But I didn’t think it was worth spending two weeks hating it and one week liking it.”

Socially, Nina felt that “camp was really similar to South … [it was] not even different from being at school,” she said.

Not returning to her overnight camp gave Nina a chance to develop a hobby. Nina attended a two-week music camp, in which she split her time working with Garage Band and playing the guitar. “I love playing guitar and singing,” she said.

Though Nina is dedicated to playing, making it her goal to take guitar more seriously during the year, she knows that pursuing a career in guitar would be difficult. “I’d like to think that that it would eventually happen, but I doubt it,” she said. “Right now it’s just a hobby.”

Nina recalls that her best moment of summer took place at guitar camp, when she sung and accompanied herself on guitar in front of other camp members at the end of the two-week session. “I have never sung by myself or with one other person in front of people before,” she said.

“It was just like proving to myself that I can actually do it, and like not chicken out,” she said. “It was a lot of fun.”

In addition to playing guitar, Nina hopes to become a more serious student next year. “I’m such a procrastinator,” she said. “I always put things off and like never actually get around to doing them.”

With the expectation of “a lot more work” for sophomore year, Nina is less than thrilled to be going back. The only aspects of returning to school that Nina looks forward to are chorus class and seeing people that she’s friendly with over the school year, but hasn’t seen this summer. Otherwise, Nina “dread[s] [school] with a passion.”

“I’m just like not thinking about it … I was shocked when someone told me there was only two weeks left of summer,” Nina said.

“During the summer, I try my best to put school out of my head entirely,” she said. “I’m not looking forward to going back at all.”

EVAN

Summer is the only time of year Evan can escape his troubles. He finds that the stress that school brings is the worst in his life. When Evan can rule his own life instead of people telling him what to do at school, he is happiest.

“If something happens at school, you have a good three months to get over it and hang with your friends,” Evan said.

Though hanging out with friends is one of Evan’s favorite past times, his friends have not found much time to spend relaxing with Evan because of camp, sports and other activities.

“All my friends have pretty much been gone … and I’m just at home watching TV and it gets really boring,” Evan said.

However, Evan would rather be bored at home than at camp with his friends.

“I’ve always hated camp,” he said. “You don’t get to do what you want to do … and I really don’t like that.”

Although Evan feels that summer is a sufficient length, he never looks forward to abruptly diving into the pressure and work of school, specifically the homework it brings.

“I just don’t like homework and I’ve never been good at it,” he said.

Unlike many rising freshman, one thing Evan is not dreading is the first day. South’s size and number of upper classmen may frighten some inexperienced frosh, but Evan feels that he has it covered.

“I have a bunch of friends,” Evan said. “I have senior friends and sophomore friends. I know they’ll help me the first day.”

Jack

This summer, senior Jack has not only lifeguarded, visited colleges and played baseball; he has also gained a new perspective on his life.

Jack spent a significant portion of this summer volunteering with kids in a poverty-stricken country. “It was a life-changing opportunity,” he said.

Spending time with both children, who jumped at the site of ice cream, and teenagers, the majority of whom don’t go to college, gave Jack a new outlook on his life. “It really leaves a lasting impression on you to be happy with what you have,” he said.

“You look at our lives, and we’re complaining about how our laptops aren’t working, but we have a laptop … these kids don’t … even have families.”

Though senior year can often be stressful, Jack hopes to apply the lessons he has learned to the upcoming school year. “Have fun, no matter what you do, no matter what the circumstances, when you could be complaining just turn it right around and have a good time,” he said.

“I’m not dreading school as much as I normally would be,” Jack said. “I’m looking forward to what else comes with senior year.”

As for colleges, Jack remains relaxed, trying to keep it in perspective.

“No matter where you go, it’s going to be a great time … to try new things and find out who you are,” he said.

As for this year, Jack hopes for the South baseball team to make it to the state tournament, after they were one game away from qualifying last year.

In school, Jack hopes to “try new things … try to meet new people that you might not have been friends with your first three years of high school.”

Otherwise, though, Jack doesn’t want to have any expectations. “I’m expecting to have a good time I guess, but other than that we’ll just see where it takes us.”