Senior Goodbye: Kate Alaks

Writing a Senior Goodbye, I have discovered, is a great deal harder than I expected it to be. The finality of it, a Senior Goodbye, makes me repeatedly second-guess myself and pull at my hair in frustration. What do I even say? How does one encapsulate four years of life in five hundred words or so? How do I not make it a cliched, threadbare pool of insincere sentiment?

I’m going to Knox College next year. This sounds like a good plan, right? Starting at the end?

Yes, yes it does.

I’m going to Knox College armed with a brilliant best friend and a plan for my majors: Creative Writing and Environmental Economics. I’m going to college with four years of high school under my belt, with experience on an award winning school paper that has dealt with school board controversy and touchy opinions and really long dry spells where maybe two events occur. I’m going to college thrilled to start a new story of my life,

It feels completely different from my entrance to RB. I had a lifetime of homeschooling, one year of volunteer work, and a handful of acquaintances when I walked in the doors. I’m not condemning my childhood, since by and large it was awesome. But I am such a different person now, and I’ve done so many things, that it’s hard to compare the two.

What was Freshman Kadet like, you ask? I would describe her as a naive, quiet, technology-deficient perfectionist.

Oh, wait. That’s actually more or less what I’m coming out as, although to a slightly lesser degree, and with a whole lot of fandoms added in. Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey, eh?

I feel like I should be thanking people now. That’s what people do.

So thanks to all my SEE team teachers for making Freshman Year awesome: Mr. Holt, Ms. Waldock, and especially Mr. Mancoff who, by now, has had me for five year-long classes in four years. Thanks for putting up with me for so long!

Thanks to Ms. Bontrager, my AP Microeconomics and Macroeconomics teacher, for getting me into the subject, and Mr. Gibbons for teaching the most difficult and yet ultimately rewarding AP US history class.

Thanks to my family for putting up with my angst and stress for four whole years. Galen, you must fulfil my legacy! Or play Mario Kart, that’s good too.

And thanks to my awesome friends, especially Nichole who’s the most phenomenal, practically fictional best friend ever, Asha for not eating me, and Carey who’s been my insane Clarion rant buddy for quite a while.

Finally, thanks to everyone else I’ve encountered these four years, for impacting me in some way.

So I guess that’s it, isn’t it? I’m going to skip the anecdotes, because I can rarely ever remember them when I’m thinking of them, and I’ll skip the advice since the fact that I’m a senior doesn’t necessarily mean that I understand everything.

Although, as the Beatles have said: All you need is love.

Sincerely,

Kadet Marshmallow