Bored during quarantine? High school students share the highlights of their summer.
Freshman Annalucia King
Freshman Annalucia King attended Camp Fernwood in Poland, Maine, for her sixth year, where she enjoyed waterskiing and making jewelry out of sterling silver.
She made a silver sun pendant and a silver and enamel ring.
King also liked designing the camp yearbook, an elected position.
“It was my first year running, and I got it even though the time we had to create the same thing was shortened due to COVID-19.”
Camp was reduced from eight weeks to four due to the pandemic. Campers were tested for COVID-19 before arriving and at camp.
“I knew that it would be different, and adapting to what we expected was key to having a great summer,” she said. “Even though the circumstances weren’t the best, I had a blast.”
Freshman Andrew Klieger
Freshman Andrew Klieger played video games over summer.
“I like rage games, but ‘Minecraft’ and ‘Fall Guys’ are becoming popular.”
Klieger went to Lake Tahoe with his parents, sister, friend Caleb Shin (’24) and Max, his dog, shortly before the end of summer.
He went wakeboarding and watched Netflix and YouTube.
“I watched ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ and ‘Promised Neverland’ because that recently came out,” he said. “I’m also a big PewDiePie fanboy, so I watched a lot of that.”
Sophomore Amaya Anguiano
Sophomore Amaya Anguiano went camping with her family in Lake Tahoe and the town of Kyburz during the same week, where she stayed the Silver Fork campground. She went hiking and spent time by the American River.
“It was really nice, but the water was freezing. It took a while to get used to the temperature,” she said.
Anguiano also spent time at the campground with her family.
“My mom, dad, my brother Aiden and my grandparents hung out at the campsite.”
Anguiano said her favorite part of summer was spending more time with her family, which she could do because her parents started to work from home.
Sophomore Tonye Jack
Sophomore Tonye Jack worked on improving his basketball and music skills.
“I wanted to make sure I’m ready by the time that the season is back in session,” he said. “I had a schedule set up for everything.
“My schedule was wake up, stretch, make breakfast, practice basketball for about an hour and a half, rest for about two hours, practice more basketball, work out for about 45 minutes, then stretch before I went to sleep,” Jack said.
Gyms and parks were closed, which affected his training.
“The only place to practice was my house,” he said.
Later in the summer, Jack focused on music.
“I went from knowing very little to having a pretty broad understanding,” he said. “I set a goal to release three songs to the public this summer, and I was able to achieve that.
“I liked seeing how I was at the beginning of the summer to the end of it,” he said. “Having so much time on my hands made me want to have a goal, and I achieved that goal.”
Junior Tina Huang
Junior Tina Huang spent her summer fencing.
“For a bit, the whole club was shut down,” she said. “Two or three weeks ago, we adapted to new restrictions.”
Fencers usually met four to five days a week and had an intensive training camp. This summer, they met three times a week with precautions in place.
At first, fencers practiced remotely.
“We couldn’t fence other people and had to do drills and conditioning. That was my least favorite part — it got boring,” she said.
As restrictions eased, fencers were split into smaller groups to practice.
“There weren’t as many opponents that we could fence, and I wanted to fence more people,” she said.
However, the best part of having a smaller group was being able to interact with people more closely.
Senior Avinash Krishna
Senior Avinash Krishna spent time studying for the SAT and working on his senior self-evaluation.
“It tells your college counselor about yourself,” he said. “It’s a good prerequisite to get prepared for college admissions.”
Although he spent time studying for the SAT, Krishna isn’t sure if he’ll be able to take it.
“I signed up for both the August and October (tests). Both of them got canceled,” he said.
Krishna also went surfing for the first time.
”I’ve seen it on ‘Hawaii Five-O,’ — people do crazy waves, so I thought it’d be easy,” he said. “But when I got on the paddleboard, I was struggling to even paddle on it. I was slipping off, and it was very scary.”
Despite the difficulty, Krishna eventually was able to stand on the board and had fun.
“It was probably one of the better experiences I’ve had all summer,” he said.
Senior Hana Lee
Senior Hana Lee started a new job at Salon Bravissimo on Fair Oaks Boulevard.
“We weren’t allowed to have clients inside, so I spent most of the time training. I went in for two hours almost every day to learn the system and the things they offered at the salon,” she said.
The salon offers services that include eyelash extensions, eyebrow waxing and hair treatments.
“My main responsibilities are to check clients in and out, process credit card transactions and keep the salon clean,” she said.
Lee started learning Italian on Duolingo, as well, which she found difficult at first.
”Although it’s a romance language and I took Spanish for three years, they pronounce everything differently,” she said.
Despite being in quarantine, she enjoyed her summer.
“It appeared to be disappointing, but in the end, it gave me a chance to calm down and appreciate things I have going for me.”
— By Samhita Kumar
Originally published in the Sept. 22 issue of the Octagon.
