Time is a funny thing. It always feels like you have so much of it, until you don’t. The less time you have, the faster it goes. Every day for the last four years I have met so many different people from all different walks of life. Seeing the same people every day, it seemed so distant the day I wouldn’t see those people.

Now we are coming to the point in our lives when we all are going our own separate directions. Many of us aren’t even staying in the same state. This is the point in our lives where we actually don’t know what the future holds. Many of us don’t even know what we want to do as a career- we’re all just young people ready to tackle a big world.

Reflecting back on my high school experience, so much changed in such a seemingly short period of time. I came to high school a goofy, scrawny girl, and I am leaving a young woman. There were so many people I had the pleasure of meeting that helped shape me for who I am today, ready to tackle the “real world”.

I would like to thank my distance track coaches/cross country coaches, Mr. Larry Adams and Ms. Amy Oppat for never giving up on me and always being there for me no matter how I ran. Cross country and track taught me to prioritize exercise, and gave me many hilarious and fun memories that I will never forget.

I would like to thank Mrs. Cosentino for giving me the opportunity to be a peer mentor, which allowed me to work with such intelligent and special students.

I would like to thank Mr. Merlo for waking up early to help me weight lift, and encouraging me to lift more than I ever thought I could. This really raised my confidence and it gave me a solid foundation for weight lifting so I can continue after high school.

I would like to thank Mrs. Satterthwaite for persuading me to join The Talon my sophomore year. It was a class that allowed me to be creative and forced me to think out of the box.

I would like to thank all my friends and family for sticking by my side throughout my entire RCS school experience. With your support, I was able to accomplish things in high school I didn’t think I could.

Finally, I would like to thank the class of 2017. Though we didn’t always get along (cough*cough* choosing a senior song, prank and skip day) we all stuck together these 4 years and are completing this journey together. No matter what direction we all choose to go in life, we’ll always have one thing in common: we were Rochester Falcons.