As the new year continues, the need and want for growth has become apparent, but it is hard to accomplish that without first reflecting on past experiences.
For junior Lexie Yates the realization of finding out she had a muscle imbalance really set in last year, as it greatly impacted her ability to play sports at full speed.
“The greatest struggle I faced in 2022 was realizing what was going on with my hips. I realized I had a muscle imbalance; after my soccer season and going into my basketball season I was struggling off injuries. I had to go to the doctor and get x-rays, and then finally we figured out what happened to them,” Yates said.
Math teacher, Alexandria Schuch, met a life milestone last year with the birth of her first child. While she does see it as an accomplishment, it did come with its challenges, even before her son was born.
“Last year I had a baby so that was probably the hardest, most rewarding [thing] but that was a pretty hard situation,” Schuch said. “A big decision I made was whether I was going to work up until I had the baby or whether I was going to kind of bow out a little early… I didn’t want to leave so quick because we had just started the school year; even though I had a substitute who knew my students and everything. But then my baby came early, so I was like, well guess the decisions made.”
As for Yates, she says she loves to look back at the good memories and think about the times she enjoyed with her friends last year.
“My favorite memory from last year would honestly have to be just anything with my friends because we did a lot of crazy things,” Yates said. “For Homecoming we finally got my friend to eat Taco Bell; he’s never had Taco Bell before, so we had to teach him how to eat that. Making those new experiences with my friends and also making new friends.”
For math teacher Brian Tervo, 2022 brought many good things including the return to normalcy, he said that last year marked the return of being able to direct his bell choir as a whole and even with that he decided to take some time for himself.
“One of the things I do is direct bell choirs outside of school and 2022 was kind of the first year that all our groups were able to come back together and rehearse on a normal schedule after COVID-19. Last spring, I actually took the season off; that was just kind of a nice break and nice to see what my Sunday afternoons are like when I don’t have the commitment. It was just relaxing,” Tervo said.
Schuch said that she and her husband not only make new year’s resolutions but also rely heavily on following through with those goals.
“My husband and I do goals together and then goals separate; then we have goals in different areas. Last year we had chosen the areas of mental health, physical health, financial health and then we set a goal for our son. Our goal had been to get our son in daycare and then we set some financial goals like paying off our debt, which we did and increase our credit score, which we also did,” Schuch said.
Although Tervo isn’t one for new year’s resolutions, he says he still sets goals for the different aspects of his life.
“I set goals for my students and for my [bell choir] group. They’re kind of very specific to whatever the thing is but I found that most people that set up new year’s resolutions, were in the middle of January, I’m guessing that most of them are kind of out the window now, so I don’t even bother,” Tervo said.
Awkard experience can easily turn into learning opportunities and funny memories to look back on, for Yates that’s how running start began for her.
“This year, during Running Start, I started college for the first time ever and that was really scary; it was weird to go through the difference [of calling teachers] by their first name,” Yates said. “I had a teacher [who said] we could turn in all or late work on the last day. That was something that was really different and changed a lot, to get into the habit of different types of classes. I’m used to it now but at the beginning it was weird to not be at school all day with my friends.”
Taking college-level classes has not only been a change but it has also taught her how to better manage her time.
“Something that I learned actually was time management and being more productive… I realized how to plan it out, I’d really like to get a lot better at it because I suck at time management… when you have school and then extracurriculars, it takes up a lot of time,” Yates said.
Although Yates has had some good times and built upon her skills, in order to have those good times, she had to go through some not so fun experiences.
“This sounds bad but I kind of describe her as naïve, during the summer I had my first relationship…,” Yates said, “my past self was very naïve to thinking that could happen. So, I got to experience that and just had so many different outlooks and thought everything was going to be perfectly fine but going through a lot of struggles and stuff, it maybe kind of worked out better in the end.”
Schuch said that her biggest accomplishment of 2022 was setting boundaries and differentiating her life from school to home.
“I have definitely drawn more boundaries in my life,” Schuch said. “I used to stay at work late all the time and just not care about getting home late to my husband and help students. But now that I have a son, I’m like, I need to prioritize a little better… there’s got to be a good balance there whether we had a kid or not… Just making those boundaries and sticking to them and not overextending myself with doing clubs and being a part of committees and different things that I just know right now wouldn’t be beneficial to my mental health.”
With Tervo’s return to normalcy he also has carried the memory of family with in through the new year.
“I would say it’d be over the summer,” Tervo said. “I go on vacation quite often be myself but last summer I got to hang out with my sister and her family. They went camping so I hung out with them and then we went and visited Glacier Park, so I’d say that trip and that time with my sister’s family was what I remember the most.”
Tervo said that character strong lessons are not only for his students, but he learned a thing or two from them as well.
“I would say more empathetic and more compassionate. We do character strong lessons for the students, but I think sometimes the teachers learn as much from those as the students do. Learning about empathy and how to truly show empathy for somebody else is something that I learn and try to practice,” Tervo said.
Tervo leaves you with one more piece of advice to start your new year off right.
“Don’t make choices now that will limit your choices later,” Tervo said. “It could be with the classes you’re taking; with the grades you’re getting. Sometimes you can make a choice that pigeonholes you into a certain path and other times you can make a different choice that leaves your options open. Make choices that give you multiple options so that way when something unexpected does come and your original choice doesn’t pan out, you have alternatives.”
