Hi! I’m back! Kind of.
I know I’ve been offline for a while, but I’ve been really productive over the last month! I spent my last year at LSM (Lutheran Summer Music) Academy up in Northfield, MN and just got back on Sunday.
It was a bit of a bittersweet year, meeting up with friends across the country for the last time. At least for a while. I did some things differently this year, and I’m really glad I did. I was actually a vocal primary, and got into Jazz Ensemble as a vocalist in a trio. (We ended up doing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy!)
This year the choir got to sing with Cantus on Stephen Paulus’ The Road Home, and I was part of a trio on the descant,
I made my roommate of 4 consecutive years and my mom cry with both my theater solo and my solo recital (Top of My School - Katherine Lynn Rose for theater, and Laurie’s Song from Aaron Copeland’s The Tenderland for solo recital), and it was great.
I should preface this section by saying that I am not a senior, but am rather going into my senior year.
(Also my roommate knows everybody and what year they’re going into, which is important.)
On the last Saturday, we sang ELW 880 (O God Beyond All Praising), which is a hymn set to Gustav Holst’s Jupiter, from his setting of The Planets, which is one of my favorite Holst works. However, this hymn also marks the day that we recognize our seniors.
The Dean of Students (love her) called people’s names, starting with first-year students, then second-years, third-years, so on. I was also just talking to my friends before that morning prayer had started about how they’re going to recognize seniors, and I don’t get that, because I’m not a senior, so when the Dean of Students finally finished listing the senior fourth-year students, she turned to look at me in the front row (already holding back tears because I knew almost all of the seniors), and said “I’m going to include you in this too.”
OKAY SO SHE HATES ME AND WANTS ME TO SOB MY EYES OUT.
ON THE TRAIN OF PEOPLE HATING ME AND WANTING ME DEAD AND SOBBING MY EYES OUT:
I vaguely mentioned something to my roommate, about how I wanted to get this one book that really meant a lot to me (The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse by Charles Mackesy), and how I wanted to have people sign it and leave messages, but I couldn’t get one, so I was going to have people sign my shirt instead.
On that Saturday night, after the orchestra concert, he came up to me, and gave me that exact book, signed by my friends, other students I don’t even know, staff, and all sorts of people.
“To show you how loved you are here, and how much of an impact you’ve made, to those you don’t even know.”
Those were his words exactly when he gave it to me.
I read it that night, crying over countless signatures and messages on pages that mattered to me. Pages that I’ve had hanging on my wall since my first year in 2023, pages that I’ve had signed by friends and staff that I’ve known and loved for four years, and pages that make me cry just by looking at them and remembering the memories they hold.
I’m really excited for this upcoming year to show the growth I’ve gone through, and for this upcoming summer in 2027, for my overseas trip! 
