High school has been full of immense growth, both academically and emotionally. In classes like English and World History, I engaged in hours of the Socratic method, discussing fictions, primary sources, philosophy, and poetry. While my skills as a writer blossomed into prose that I was proud to call my own, the discussions proved much more difficult for me. Before high school, being a “good student” consisted of sitting quietly in my chair, listening to the teacher, and dutifully following...

There were just forty-five of us. Forty five timid yet daring freshman and sophomores who took the courageous first step into building culture and tradition. With our large stack of new books in hand and little real idea of what was yet to come, we stepped onto the small campus to start our new adventure. On August 26, 2015 we opened Pacifica Christian High School. The first year was filled with trial and error, leading to many valuable questions about how a...

I would love to star as Maria in The Sound of Music. From the complex historical backdrop of WWII to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s beautiful score, this movie-musical encapsulates the kind of masterful storytelling I wish to accomplish in my own aspirations as a writer and actress. I can picture the first scene, opening on Julie Andrews, or in this case myself, twirling on a lush Austrian hilltop until the bells of the abbey bring me back to reality. I...

I absolutely love to read. As a founding member of a private Christian high school that follows a college preparatory liberal arts curriculum, I have had the opportunity to study a plethora of literary and philosophical classics in Socratic seminars. This has provided a wonderful foundation in my pursuit to think critically about the history of ideas that shape our present world. By reading authors from distant time periods such as Homer, Dante, and Bunyan, and analyzing points of view...

Sitting in elementary school chapel with lights dimmed, our speaker requested we close our eyes and raise our hands if we desired to join him in a prayer to accept Jesus Christ. Because I had attended this school since before kindergarten, chapels of this sort were commonplace. But, on that day, my nine-year-old heart began to understand the weight of this decision, this prayer. Peeking through my fingers at the dark auditorium to see if anyone else was going to...