When looking back on 2023, Patrick Schrappen, chemistry teacher, said it was overall a good year for him with a balance of both good and bad events.
“I finished paying off my student loans,” Schrappen said. “I was able to spend some time visiting with family that I haven’t seen often and I was able to take my first vacation in 12 years.”
Schrappen went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
“I was able to see the sun rising over the Atlantic, and was able to do a lot of things that I wouldn’t be able to do because of what’s available on the East Coast compared to the West,” Schrappen said. “The vacation gave me a chance to look at scenery and enjoy the peace of the world without having to worry about deadlines or hold up a conversation with someone else, to just be in the moment.”
Schrappen said he has high hopes for the new year.
“I’m optimistic. I’d be finished with my last degree and I can stop having to worry about grad school. Then I would have a year without anything hindering or holding me back from what I want to achieve,” Schrappen said. ”My biggest goal for 2024 is to buy a house.”
Joslyn Bogner, junior, looks back over the past year with fondness but also anticipation for the new year.
“There were definitely some projects with AP European History that I had a lot of fun with and being done with the AP European History Exam in the May of 2023,” Bogner said.
One project she remembers fondly is a project in which they held a tea party with various figures from the late 1800s in Europe.
“I was also very excited to learn some of the orbitals in Physics and Kepler’s Laws,” Bogner said.
Going into junior year, Bogner had some apprehensions.
“I was really worried going into Junior year about the workload and difficulty,” Bogner said. “It’s not a cakewalk, but I’m managing a lot better than I thought I would.”
Bogner said she hopes to pass all of her classes with a “decent grade” this year and apply to colleges.
“I have high hopes for the summer and senior year,” Bogner said.
Ivy Wang’s, sophomore, word to describe the past year was stressful.
“I managed to survive. I got my grades to where I’m happy with it, but mostly I managed to survive it,” Wang said.
Wang’s favorite moments of the year were “Model UN shenanigans.”
“Those meetings were the highlight of my year: to sit in a room, screw around and talk about politics,” Wang said.
This year Wang is excited about helping to run the American Regional Biology Competition (ARBC) in St. Louis which is planned for April and she worked on it over the summer of 2023. She is also excited for the Model United Nations conference at University of Chicago in February.
