“If I had no expectations to live up to…

“I would probably put a lot less effort into things and sleep a lot more.” ~ Claire Hutchinson, sophomore

“I think I’d probably do something music related and play more instruments.”  ~ Emily Hughes, sophomore

“I would probably do exactly what I’m doing now except I would cry a lot less.” ~ Alex Kendrick, sophomore

“I’m from Austria. We are our own country, and we’re not Australia. I get asked sometimes if I’m from Australia, because they don’t understand it’s something different. It’s a really small country, and we speak German. And I love small countries, small cities, and I know everyone there and it’s so nice. It’s more familiar than being in a school with over a thousand people. And I really love it, I love the culture. And we have the Alps. I miss my mountains.” ~ Lena Painer, senior

“If I could do anything, I would really want to go into pediatrics or psychiatry to have a job. Specifically, going into medical school, that’s been what I’ve wanted to do for a long time… When my uncle died there was a malpractice suit for him. The trial was two years after he died, and then  had to go and sit through the hearings and sit through everything, and the fact that he should probably still be alive and it was doctor error, is one of those things where you’re like, ‘If I can help that for someone else…'” ~ Christina Hayford, senior

What significant moment in your past defines you? “Starting to play basketball.” How long have you been playing basketball? “Since I was two.” Why do you do basketball? “Because I’m good.” ~ Tracy Calvin, freshman

“We just built our new temple and so our youth group spent nights there and I spent a lot of school nights there until three, four a.m. I went home, went to sleep at six o’clock, so it was a really hard time, but we got through it and it was all worth it… And the temple, we just built the new temple right off Shawnee Mission Parkway, Lackman and 63rd-ish Street on the corner.” What do most people here not know about Hinduism? “One particular thing is they think it’s a polytheistic religion, like many gods. But not necessarily. It’s monotheistic, because there’s a lot of different forms one one supreme god.” ~ Nill Patel, senior

What has been occupying your mind for the past week? “Work, I guess. My job.” Where do you work? “Embassy Suites in the Plaza. I work as a chef.” Why food? “Why food? because, when you make food, you can change people’s day, like how they feel. Like if I give them bad food, you kind of ruin their day, but if I be good at it, I can make them happy.” ~ Barclay Raith, junior

What is your dream? “Oh, you don’t know the half of it. Okay, so I am actually going to be on Survivor, win it, I am going to buy my own island of the coast of Australia, build a huge mansion on it, and basically kind of like own my own family cult kind of thing. Except it’s not a cult. It’s just my whole family’s going to live there and I’m going to select a few friends that pass the – it’s going to be great.” ~ Christian Swearingen, junior

“Well, right now we’re in marching season, so we’re focusing on that–”

“–we’re focusing on flags and marching with the band–”

“–but the reason why I like drill team so much is there’s so many of a variety of people on the team that we bond–”

“–people I would’ve never met–”

“–yeah, we wouldn’t have met any of the people there, and it’s fun to do what you love at school, show everyone what you can do.” ~ Katie McCluskey & Emily Moore, sophomores

What does your life revolve around? “School. Golf. And friends.” Why do you like golf? “It’s fun, and it’s easy to get a scholarship, and I like it and I’m good.” ~ Gabriella Cortez, sophomore

What is your dream? “I want to be an ObGyn, like deliver babies. I’ve always, I don’t know maybe when I started to get older I’ve always seems, cause I love kids. Yeah, just get into college and major in that. ~ Kiara Johnson, sophomore

“We do it, or at least I do it because I like – the reward that we get from it is being able to see what we put together on stage and we get to add part of a character to somebody who’s already trying to portray a character. And it just all fits together nicely when they look the part as well as are acting the part. So that’s rewarding.” ~ Lysle Hartnett, junior

“I totally agree with that, that we can see what we’ve done, or at least, we don’t get to see it because we’re backstage but, we get to see people’s reactions to what we’ve picked out and what we’ve done, and that’s what’s rewarding about it.” ~ Marta Fears, sophomore

“My dream is to be a caregiver, and be a cardiologist and go to the hospital and care for the children because I personally have a heart problem and I have struggled with that my whole life.” ~ Krystal Currin, senior

“What revolves around my life is how important my family and my school are to me. And deciding what I want to do with my future, like deciding what college I want to go to and pursue.” ~ Walimah Clark, senior

“I want to be something in art, so I was kind of experiencing different things, just finding out what I want to do. I’m taking drawing next semester, and I took Intro to Art, so I haven’t really done that much yet.” So you want to be an artist? “Something in like design or art, I’m not really sure, exactly, yet. Because I’ve always had an interest in art and I’ve always been somewhat good at it, so I kind of just thought, maybe give it a try.” ~ Sophia Gonzalez, sophomore

What is your dream? “Probably – and I’m sorry if I go super nerd on you here, but – to get a job as a programmer.” Why programming? “Both of my brothers and my dad are all huge computer nerds, so that’s really what got me started.” What do you know that most people don’t? “I know a few programming languages like Java and HML and CSS.” What does it look like to be a programmer? “Well, right now, my brother – he’s 28 and he has his own kind of small programming business. And basically what I would be doing is just making websites for different companies he get’s hired by.” ~ Jack Huckleman, freshman