2020-21 Humans of CHS

This year, I’m most proud of getting into a good college that I like, picking a major that suits me, finding a roommate, preparing myself to leave. I’m proud to finally be getting out of the state! I’m going to Miami University, which isn’t very far, but it’s still a new state!

"I’m proud of getting into college, as I am the first male on my dad’s side to attend college, which is pretty impressive. I’m also proud that I was able to find an affordable and educational post-high school route to follow."

"The past year as a whole has been very weird and challenging in the aspect of virtual and in person activities, which kinda made me struggle with getting stuff done on time, because my daily schedule was totally changed so doing things at home, virtually, was a little more confusing. I’m very proud that I was able to get through all the challenges this past year has presented due to COVID. I’m a...

"This year has been pretty interesting, especially with COVID-19. The virtual days have both helped and hurt, because sometimes it’s hard to keep up with schoolwork, but at the same time the virtual days are an opportunity to catch up, ask friends for help, and whatnot. I think I kind of prefer the hybrid schedule over the normal schedule, just because I felt like it made the year pass by really...

"Something that people may not know about me at first glance is the fact that when I was little, I loved playing with fireworks, and one time I was playing with them unsupervised, and I let the whole firework burn down all the way down to my thumb. It started burning my thumb and my joint, so I was hospitalized and underwent a surgery, and now I’m double jointed, so that’s a fun little story abo...

Over this past year, I’m really proud of passing my classes. COVID kind of made everything more independent and harder, so I’m proud that I didn’t totally fail because of the pandemic. I’m kinda scared for how next year is going to go, as it will definitely involve lots of readjusting to everyday school life, but I’m ready to go back to normal in all other aspects of life....

I’m really proud of my grades this year, because I’ve been able to keep them up through the pandemic, which obviously caused everyone to struggle a little bit, so I’m happy that I was able to not let that stop me from succeeding. Something that might not be so obvious to people that have just met me is that I’m a soccer player. Soccer is something I care about and focus on a lot, and that mi...

"(On April Fools’ Day), when I was younger, I used to go to my parents bathroom and do whatever I could, (such as) throw toothpaste on the walls and just make a mess. It was funny until my parents were mad at me. And last year, well, I think I got pranked the most because last year my mom woke me up really early and told me that we wouldn’t be going back to school that year in person— that one...

"When I graduated from fifth grade, I got off of the bus on my last day of (elementary) school and my parents hid behind a tree and they ran out and soaked my brother and I with squirt guns. I was a little mad at them because I was in my fancy little graduation outfit. Also, on April Fools’ Day (this year) my 9-year-old brother left a fake spider in my room."

"I did an egg prank on my mom, where someone puts their fingers through the door hole and then they hold an egg. She was stuck for at least 10 minutes before my dad took the egg away. It slipped out of his hand and got all over the floor. We did the same thing to my grandma, and she didn’t realize what was going on, so then she dropped it and the egg got all over the floor."

"Last March 13 was pretty normal. I remember having a lot of tests and goofing around with my friends in school. Life was certainly more free during that time. I got to see my friends a lot more often. Sports used to be held everyday, but now they’re basically every other day. We also used to have school everyday, now we don’t, which definitely makes it easier than it was. I think that this year�...

"Lockdown happened around the end of our winter workouts for football. We were just getting ready to start spring workouts but we had to cancel all those due to the pandemic. This year, we’re able to do most of those workouts again as we’ve adapted to the disease. It's still limited but it’s definitely improved, which is good. I like this year’s structure much better than last year’s for s...

"The weekend everything got shut down, I was supposed to have a hockey tournament in Fort Wayne, but it got canceled last minute. At that point I thought it was kind of weird that things were getting canceled due to a disease but I didn’t think that it would last this long or be this drastic. Things have changed a lot since last year, which is definitely something I didn’t expect back in March...

"I was at a volleyball tournament the weekend before everything got shut down. I remember there was a bunch of talk about canceling school, canceling volleyball, which was a really big deal back then because we were in the middle of a season. For a while there, life was pretty different, especially during lockdown, but things have been starting to get back to normal. For sports especially, things h...

"Last March, life was pretty normal for the most part. Now, life is definitely stranger with all the guidelines and precautions we have to follow everywhere. However, I do prefer the new hybrid school schedule over last year’s online structure because it gives me more time between classes to study and get work done, especially before test days. By next March I think that we will be closer to norma...

Last March 13th, I was mostly preparing for ISSMA State, the ACT, and Science Olympiad. Sadly, all three of those were cancelled. Also, I was hanging out with a lot of people and getting home pretty late each day in general. A lot of things have changed since then. Generally, I have a lot less responsibilities and I spend a lot more time doing nothing than I did last year. Also, a lot of my intera...

"I want to start improving my sleep schedule because I don’t have the best one right now, so I would have to keep a constant bedtime. I also plan on spending more time outside and staying off my phone as much as I can, because I feel like that will make me much happier in general, which will improve my schoolwork."  

"My New Year’s Resolution is to stay motivated with school so I can finish the year with good grades, which I will do by making sure I keep up with all my classes, not getting behind on any work."

"Last year, I was involved in unified track not regular track...so I did not experience the cancellation of a season that I was training for. I don’t have any worry that the season will be canceled this year due to the fact that vaccines are being distributed.”  

“For the first time in recent history, we have time standards for all of the events and will make cuts to limit our numbers...I’m not too worried about [the season being canceled again] because we were able to have a full cross country season with very few COVID cases on the team. As long as we can keep doing what we’re doing right now, I think we will be able to have a full season.”...

  “One change...I’ve made because of COVID is getting together with smaller groups to make sure to stay safe. I’ve, of course, had worries about our season getting cancelled. But I don’t think it will because cross country didn’t get cancelled.”

(If I had to wake up on the same day over and over, the perfect day would) honestly probably my wedding day or like the day my kids are born or something like that. The part where like I was actually on stage getting married I could definitely relive that moment.

“(If I had to wake up on the same day over and over,) I would hang out with all of my friends and family and play a lot of sports and fun games. I would also eat a lot of food, especially sweets like cakes and cookies.”  

"(If I had to wake up on the same day over and over, the perfect day would be) somewhere in middle school. Before I got to high school. A dance like the winter formal or the last day of middle school before we got to high school like the small parties we used to have. We went around signing yearbooks and I could really live that day everyday. A day where the weather was nice and we could hang out ...

“(If I had to wake up on the same day over and over, the perfect day would be) Being outside and playing soccer everyday with my friends and then switching to video games as like a break.”

"(If I had to wake up on the same day over and over)The first day I’d just get all my work done, and then when the day repeated I would just watch TV and read continuously because it’s nice having nothing to do and having no responsibilities."

"(If I had to wake up on the same day over and over,) I think it would be nice to be in the mountains somewhere, hiking. Then everyday I could wake up and do something kind of new, like hike a different trail or something."

I don't think there will be big crowds gathered around Time Square this year (for New Year's Eve). I think it will be shown on TV virtually for everyone to still watch.   Maybe the Hosts will still be there for the countdown. Even if people wore masks, there wouldn’t be enough room to social distance everyone.  Definitely a different year.  

“This year will be different than previous years because my family cannot attend a Christmas concert together due to COVID-19 restrictions"

"My favorite memory from my childhood (during Thanksgiving) was at my Grandma’s house with my family and Aunts, Uncles and cousins.   After we had eaten our dinner and the kitchen was cleaned up, the men would all go in the living room and watch football and the women and children would drive to Downtown Akron, Ohio and walk around outside of all the big Department stores and admire all the Chris...

"We have a recipe called Buffalo chicken dip. The recipe consists of a can of chicken, a block of cream cheese, shredded Mexican cheese, ranch dressing and Buffalo hot sauce. It’s really good if you mix and heat it all up and then serve with tortilla chips."

"Normally we would have my grandparents over for a couple days around thanksgiving and there’s usually an annual hockey tournament, but it got canceled this year, that one of my brothers would be playing in that’s called the turkey bowl, so normally my family would go to those games and watch them."

"My dad said basically, “hey, let’s try this recipe!” We all loved (cranberry salad) so we have made it every year since. We chop up cranberries, let them sit in sugar usually overnight, and then we add in mandarin oranges and then fold in fresh whipped heavy whipping cream And we usually just have a small thanksgiving at our house since our relatives don’t live close. We do like to invite som...

"One thanksgiving tradition in my family is what we call unthanksgiving. Since I have a big family every year we wouldn’t be able to see each other on thanksgiving because everyone was going all different directions trying to see family, and my siblings spouses family, and there were simply a lot of different thanksgivings happening and we wouldn’t be able to see each other. So we around 5 year...

"I usually go to my grandma’s house, but I can't this year. We are doing a Zoom thanksgiving. We love going to hockey games on thanksgiving. My aunt is actually the manager of the Fort Wayne Comets, so she gets us tickets every year. Me and my grandma always get up early to watch the Macy thanksgiving day parade, everyone else in my family sleeps in. My mom and my aunt always make mashed potatoe...

"(I started playing football when) I was 9 years old and in 4th grade. (My favorite part about coaching football is) watching the players develop and improve as players and young men as the season goes on."

"(When I was a kid, my favorite house to trick-or-treat at was this)  house that the adult always dressed up in a costume and the entire entryway was all decorated with lights, cobwebs and spooky music."

"I want to be more productive, and I guess time management would go along with that. Over the summer, I would just sleep all day, so I’m kind of getting myself back into a better sleep schedule and then working on schoolwork at better times, not at midnight—kind of rearranging my whole timeframe. I’m focusing on more of the sleep schedule stuff, so that will help me get into a better routine. I...

"Currently, my biggest goal in life is to get into a good college and further my academic career. I’m working to establish deadlines for myself and basically just prove to myself and others that I can do it. Right now, I’m trying to get service hours, like I just signed up to volunteer at the Humane Society. (I’m) working on my essays, coming up with topics I could write about, getting letters of...

"I would like to improve my self-motivation for getting schoolwork done, and also for my extracurriculars. What I’m doing to try to improve that is just sitting down with no distractions and working on purely one subject at a time or one extracurricular at a time, just to make sure all the work is getting done. I feel like with hybrid learning, it’s easier to do it because we get multiple days...

"I am working to improve my study habits, and I’m setting a schedule that I can follow to help me. When I get home, I’ll be studying instead of playing and being entertained by things, and I will also be making sure I get all my assignments done for the next day. If I get all my work done, I can do whatever I want. Usually, I don’t use any (study) methods—if I’m tired, I’ll just take a...

"My self-improvement goal is to lose weight, and how I’m working on it is watching what I eat and walking more. I was just too heavy, just feeling the pressure on my body and my knees moving right out of the pandemic. I gained a lot of weight during the pandemic, and now I’m on my toes losing weight. I started a week ago, so this is my second week, and I’m down eight pounds. I’m not on any ...

“I’m getting older, so I’ve always wanted to go outside and go out trick or treating, stuff like that, but I can’t really do that anymore. I still celebrate it- watch scary movies and things like that. (This year) I’ll probably sit around and watch movies with my family or something.”

"I became a teacher because I really enjoy working with students.  I started working in special ed because I want to give everyone equal opportunity to reach their potential."

"This year, I’m really just trying to stay on top of my academics, especially for applying to future colleges that I’m looking at—they’re more prestigious, so I’m trying to do my best on every assignment and test. I’m also trying to be more involved with my family because especially during quarantine, it showed that family’s always going to be there, so it’s important that you take...

"I’m just trying to improve my work ethic and just getting stuff done on time and putting more effort into it. I have a planner where I write down everything I need to get done and due dates and everything like that, and I have Post-It notes that have a certain meaning for each color. I’ve had this goal throughout high school and this year too because  I didn’t really do that well last year. ...

"I definitely want to get more sleep. I got a lot of sleep over the summer, but when school started, I am not getting as much sleep now, and so I want to try to make a more conscious effort to go to bed earlier and also drink less caffeine in the evenings so I can fall asleep at night. When I don’t get enough sleep, I am very groggy throughout the day, and it makes it harder to get stuff done whe...