Photos By Levi Thompson

Interviews By Joanna Ariola

Do something dangerous, do it half-heartedly, do it because you really want to, make the most of every opportunity you get.

Treat others how you want to be treated. Try not to be a hypocrite in the way you do things. Kindness and just being tolerant, you know, not judging others. Always be open to new ideas, don’t be close minded.

Try your best, like, my dad always said that. I mean that’s cliché but it works.

Life not being fair is probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned. My dad reiterated that to me at a very early age. You’re not always going to get what you want or what you need and that’s not because you didn’t try hard enough or because you were in the right place at the right time, that’s just the way it works sometimes. I think a lot of people especially our age could benefit from learning that. Life is not fair and like sometimes you just have to go through things and you have to learn from them. It throws curveballs at you and it’s unpredictable. I don’t know, I think about that all the time. You kind of just have to keep that in your back pocket and remind yourself that sometimes it’s not you or other people, it’s just the way it happens.

Don’t waste time doing things that you’re not passionate about.

“I guess I’ve learned to just be open to everybody because you never really know another person’s story. You know, you could be talking to somebody and they could be having a really horrible day. Be open to everybody and be kind.”

I think something that I struggled with a lot growing up was being afraid to fail and letting that decide what I wanted to do. Accepting and acknowledging that you’re going fail is going be embarrassing, but the real test is just getting back up, brushing your shoulders off, and doing it again.

I guess the best advice received would have to be that if you learn from a mistake you’ve made, then it’s not really a mistake.

You learn how to be a nice person or you learn how to become a tougher person because of the people around you. Even the crappy ones. So the good ones, the bad ones, they’re all necessary.

Apply yourself. And even though it’s hard sometimes you need to try your best even though it’s not the easiest thing to do. So just apply yourself, no matter what.

Always do what you think is right and before making a decision. Just like, internally think: is this the right thing to do? Like should I really be doing this?

My senior English teacher last year gave us three pieces of advice: 1. Make friends with the librarian. 2. Never steal a dragon’s gold. We were reading Grendel at the time. 3. Carpe Diem, just live in the moment. Those always stick with me.

Telling the truth helps. Telling the truth definitely helps. I also learned that telling the truth, it makes people mad.