Well, finishing my senior year in high school during a global pandemic was not really how I envisioned this school year ending. It seems like a topic for a movie, and I feel pretty certain that as soon as social distancing is over, several Hollywood studios will start filming stories taking place during Covid-19. So, I decided to write about what I most look forward to doing as soon as we are no longer required to stay six-feet away from everyone but our immediate family.

Visit and hug my family members that I do not live with. Not seeing my grandparents during this pandemic has been very hard. Although none of my grandparents live in Illinois, they all visit every few months and we have taken several vacations with them. All four of my grandparents had planned to fly to Illinois the weekend directly after the schools shut down. They were coming to watch my final show choir competition as a senior. They all planned to return the weekend before graduation so that they could attend my graduation on May 18th. At this point, I’m uncertain when we will get to see them, but I know as soon as it’s safe, we will visit.

Spend time with my friends before we all leave for college. My closest friends and I are all going to different colleges. It will be really strange not seeing them except for breaks. Because I am attending school in California next fall, I feel like it will be a lot harder for me to get together with my friends except for Christmas break.

Take my graduation trip to Hawaii. My family started a tradition last year when my sister graduated, to take a family trip to wherever the graduate wanted to go. My sister, Taylor, chose Disney World last summer. We hadn’t been for several years and we had special tickets to the Villains after hours event. It was great, and we were able to walk on many rides, eat some great food, and make memories before Taylor left for college in New Jersey. This year, I wanted to return to Maui with my family. We were going to stay in condos at the Grand Wailea for part of the time so we could use their water slides and then finish up at the Four Seasons and get pampered. We were all really excited. Now, I’m not even sure when Hawaii will open for tourism again. I know we will eventually take my graduation trip, I’m just not sure when we will go. It may be months, it may be in a year. It will still be a fun trip, but I’m not sure if it will really feel like a graduation trip.

Shop in person for things for my college dorm. I’m going to admit, I have not been to any stores since the governor issued the stay at home order. I go outside to walk our dog, or jump on our trampoline with my sisters, but I haven’t stepped foot inside any building other than my house. I’m not really a huge shopper, but just knowing that most stores are closed, and the ones that are still open require people to wear masks, makes me really not want to go out. 

What a strange two weeks this has been. To quote Sharpay and Ryan Evans from the movie “High School Musical” 

“This is not what I want

This is not what I planned

And I just got to say

I do not understand

Something is really

Something’s not right

Really wrong

And we gotta get things

Back where they belong”

To say that spending the last few weeks under a state-mandated quarantine for an unspecified amount of time due to a world-wide pandemic was not how I planned to end my senior year is an understatement. It sounds like something straight out of a hollywood movie.

So, how has my family been spending the quarantine? Well, our family of five is each handling it a little differently from one another. My Dad works from home in his office in the basement. My Mom is the one who does the grocery shopping and goes out for things we need. My oldest sister has been on Spring Break for two weeks and starts her college e-learning on Monday. My younger sister and I have been actually pretty busy with our own e-learning. My dog is getting way more walks than usual, but is glad to have everyone home with her. My cat is annoyed to have everyone home with him, and my kitten is just happy to cuddle while I do my e-learning.  We are all dealing with it in different ways. We have been binge-watching shows on Netflix and Disney +. We have also tried to order from local restaurants, do some crafts, and puzzles. We have cooked and baked new things. Some of being home together has been great. The hard part for all of us is finding a private place to just get away from each other now and again.

While I understand the need to avoid large gatherings of people, and to maintain a safe distance from people not in your immediate family, it is still a stressful thing to be told to stay at home unless you need to get groceries, gas, or get medicine. Oh, I forgot, you can also go outside as long as you stay at least six feet away from strangers.

As a senior, not only are we worried about getting into a college we would like to attend, finishing our classes with decent grades, and doing well on final AP tests in order to get college credit, now we also need to worry about all of the traditional senior opportunities that we in all likelihood may not get to experience; Senior awards breakfast, Air Band, Senior Celebration, Prom, Graduation. Graduating is already kind of a sad experience because we know we will be saying “goodbye” to friends and relationships that will really never be the same. Sure, some of us might attend the same college, but we will be making new friends, and growing in ways that might change our friendships when we come back together on breaks from college.

No matter how much this has changed people’s lives, it really is for the best for society as a whole to maintain social distancing and try to flatten the curve. Hopefully, if we follow the recommendations to stay at home, we will emerge sooner rather than later and our lives will go back to normal.

My family loves animals. We currently have a dog and two cats, but we have also had a guinea pig as a pet in the past. With our pets, some are adopted from shelters, one is from a breeder, and one we adopted from friends. There seems to be some controversy over whether it is better to adopt from a shelter or use a breeder. I will share my own personal experiences and why my family made the choices we did.

Our first pet owning experience came when we received a kitten from Santa when I was 6. OK, so maybe it didn’t really come from Santa, but we received a pet Christmas morning and it was love at first sight. We named him Snowy. Many years later, my parents told me about how Snowy had actually come from PetSmart when they had pets from several local shelters. My mom had tried to adopt directly from Naperville Humane Society, but they would not allow adoptions as a present and they wanted the entire family to meet the pet beforehand, which she thought would ruin the surprise. However, we still ended up adopting a shelter animal through PetSmart. Either way, he was our first pet, and he will always have a special place in our hearts. 

My second pet, Sunny, was adopted straight from a breeder. My sisters and I had always had a little bit of a fear of dogs growing up. We had gotten chased by large dogs a couple of times when we would go on walks to the park, so we were always hesitant around dogs. The only dog that we would go near was our neighbor’s yellow lab, Nellie. She was always very calm and friendly. We all really did want a dog, but we wanted a dog that would be like her. When we first got Sunny, she had so much energy and she loved being around people, just like Nellie. I’m really happy we made the choice we did. Sunny helped me get over my fear of dogs. Now, I wouldn’t be afraid of adopting a dog from a shelter anymore, and I would probably choose to adopt.  

Our guinea pig, Brownie, didn’t come from a pet store or shelter. A friend of ours had two guinea pigs that she thought were girls, but one happened to be a boy and they had three babies. They couldn’t keep the three babies so we took one of them. I guess technically this is considered adoption… Either way, we were so happy that Brownie was a part of our family for three years. If I was going to get a guinea pig again though, I would probably get one at the pet store. We all really miss Brownie, and it was interesting learning about a different type of pet rather than just cats and dogs.  

My last pet, Cookie, we adopted from a shelter. After Brownie passed away, we decided we wanted to get another pet. We knew Snowy was getting a little bit older, so we wanted to get a younger kitten so that they could maybe be friends. We went to the Naperville Humane Society, actually right after I took my SAT in December 2018. Anyway, this was the first time in a while that I had been in a shelter. I got to interact with a bunch of different cats to see which might be a good fit for our family. After meeting Cookie, we just knew that she was perfect. Even though we originally got her in the hopes that she and Snowy would get along, so far, they each pretend to be “only” cats rather than siblings. We are still hopeful though. Cookie has brought so much crazy energy into our house. She loves to climb and jump up as high as possible. She makes us laugh every day, and she completes our family.  

Families have a variety of different reasons for why they may choose to adopt their pets from a shelter or go to a breeder. I believe that it depends on the situation which one is best for the family. Either way, the families end up with a great pet and a lot of love to go around. Whatever you decide, just make sure that your family is ready for the responsibility of pet ownership. Pets bring a lot of joy, and they make a great addition to a family.

As a senior at NNHS High School, I will finally be able to vote in the presidential election next year. It’s more important now than ever to know what’s going on in politics and to keep up with current events. Whether you believe it or not, every decision in politics will affect you. It’s our responsibility as citizens to vote because our opinions matter and our voices need to be heard. Think about it, in four short years, most of us will be graduating college, starting jobs, paying taxes, and this election will impact our future lives in a major way. 

This year, students in Urban History were assigned a project to register as many students to vote as possible. Sean van Dril, a former NNHS student, created a digital program to help high schoolers get registered to vote called RegiStart. He reached out to the urban history classes and had the students ask their friends to register to vote. Each student had to get at least 10 of their friends to register to vote. In just 5 days, the number of NNHS seniors registered to vote increased from 93 to 336, which is nearly half of the senior class according to the Chicago Tribune.

Most politicians do not pay as much attention to the opinions of the younger generations. Less than half of people ages 18-29 are registered to vote, and only about 36% of those registered voted in 2018. Voter turnout was nearly double for those 65 and older, so generally politicians will pay more attention to their wishes. If we can increase voter registration in 18-29 year olds, our voices will have much more of an impact on political choices because politicians will want our votes. If you have an opinion on politics, it is very important that you get your voice out there and vote so that you can be heard. 

There are a lot of different reasons that people may choose not to vote, but the biggest reason is that people do not think that their opinions will matter in the election. If you are a Democrat in a state that is mostly Republican, or vice versa, you may believe that your vote will not count because you are not a part of the majority. However, if an election is close, your vote will always matter and it could make a difference in who wins the election. On November 5th, the Senate Elections took place, and in Virginia, a state known for being mostly Republican, the majority of the seats went to Democrats. This is huge because it means that the voters completely changed the outlook of the election. A couple of votes could completely change an election, and it’s so important that our voices are heard. 

As citizens of the United States, it is so important that we do our civic duty and vote in the elections. Every single vote matters, and it is imperative that we make our voices heard. When we get our first job and have to start paying taxes, we will care who is in charge and what they are funding, so we must vote now because our future is in our hands.

As a 17 year old who will finally be able to vote for the first time, I figured it was important to start understanding the key players in politics and the upcoming presidential election. In order to do this, I researched articles and videos on websites with a broad range of political views. At this point in time, I do not support any specific political party because my views differ from issue to issue. I was doing research to find out more about individual candidates and their views so I know who I would agree with most. In doing my research, I came across a lot of information about the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s actions. 

Most people have probably heard that President Donald Trump is the subject of an impeachment inquiry. I kept hearing bits and pieces about the situation, but I never completely understood what the issue was, so I decided to investigate. Hopefully, I can help other future voters have a better understanding of this important issue.

Here’s what I found:     

Trump is accused of pressuring the newly elected leader of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate the top Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate Joe Biden as well as his son Hunter. This occurred during a phone call on July 25 to congratulate him on winning the election. 

So why is this a big deal? Click here to find out.

• The phone call took place only a few days after Trump blocked a large amount of money to military aid in Ukraine 
• Presidents are not allowed to use their office to solicit foreign aid in a U.S. election 
• Trump wanted to investigate corruption allegations that had already been discredited 
• Biden was considered the current favorite to win the Democratic nomination for the 2020 Presidential election, meaning he would be running directly against Trump     

Pro-Impeachment

The Democrats believe that Trump was purposely blocking military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to force the Ukranian leader to assist in discrediting Trump’s political opponent. It is against the law for a President to ask foreign countries to help win a U.S. election. The investigation came after a whistleblower complaint of Trump’s wrongdoings in his phone call with the Ukranian leader. White House staffers attempted to cover up the conversation by “locking down” all records of the call. It was put into a system for sensitive, classified information when the call did not contain any sensitive national security information in order to restrict who would see the transcript of the call.   

To read the actual complaint of the whistleblower, along with annotations explaining the arguments, click this link. 

Trump Defense 

The Republican Party’s defense for the issue is that Trump had been talking about corruption with Joe Biden for months and had already been suggesting an investigation into his conduct before Biden announced he was running for President. Trump argues that his purpose in investigating Biden was purely an attack on corruption and not an election strategy. See this video for more information.   

What Comes Next?   

Presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office, and the only way to remove the president from office is through impeachment. Impeachment is when charges are brought to Congress against the seating President in order to initiate a trial. The impeachment process begins at the House of Representatives. Evidence of wrong-doing is brought before the House, and it ends in a vote. If there is no majority, then the President remains in office and the process is done. A simple majority is required for impeachment and moving onto a trial in the Senate. After the trial in the Senate, the Senators vote on whether or not to convict the President. If less than two-thirds votes to convict, the president remains in office. If two-thirds vote to convict, then the President is removed from office and the vice president will take over.  

My Conclusion  

Based on the articles I found, I believe that Trump never should have brought up the Bidens to the Ukranian President. This is a direct violation of the law because Biden is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President, and Trump was using his political power to influence foreign parties to help him discredit a potential rival. I don’t have a political affiliation, and I feel like I am more interested in the issue itself and not just supporting one party over another. I don’t have enough legal knowledge to say whether or not Trump should be impeached for his actions. However, I don’t think that Trump’s conduct is acceptable and Presidents should not engage in this kind of behavior. 

Call to Action

As future voters, we should all educate ourselves on this issue and make sure we fully understand it in order to take a position on the matter. Once you have a firm position, it’s important to contact your House and Senate representatives to let them know what you think. We all need to be actively participating in politics so that our opinions are heard.

Works Cited  

“Donald Trump: How Could He Be Impeached?” BBC News, BBC, 24 Sept. 2019, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39945744.

Loeb, Saul. US President Donald Trump speaks as Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky looks on during a meeting in New York on September 25, 2019, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. www.cnbc.com, Getty Images, 1 Oct. 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/01/ukraines-president-zelensky-damaged-relationships-during-trump-call.html.

“President Trump Insists Calls for Biden Investigations Are about Corruption, Not Politics.” Fox News, FOX News Network, video.foxnews.com/v/6092428267001/#sp=show-clips.

“Trump Impeachment Inquiry: The Short, Medium and Long Story.” BBC News, BBC, 2 Oct. 2019, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49800181.

“Whistleblower Complaint, Annotated.” CNN, Cable News Network, www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/09/politics/whistleblower-complaint-annotated/.