January 15: the long-awaited end of a grueling first semester. The day that senioritis engulfed our senior class. Just another ordinary Friday for our teachers.

Most teachers are acutely aware of our shift in attitude following the onset of the second semester. Some even mitigate their workloads accordingly. But by no means do our teachers dampen their liking of what they teach – unlike the CommonApp’s stability, their collective enthusiasm is permanent.

We seniors have two options. We can allow our teachers’ energy to go completely to waste so we can be “totally done,” or we can continue to probe the minds of our educators, let their passions shape ours and work diligently, albeit under less stress and with less intensity.

We don’t attend Harker because it’s easy. We don’t attend Harker because we love Main in the mornings. We don’t even attend Harker for its magnificent physical phenomenon of a pendulum.

We attend Harker for its intellectual community: our teachers and friends that shape our lives with their every influential word.

To Mr. Spenner and Ms. Gilbert, your tangible happiness and enthusiasm are what motivate me every time I so much as think of “abbreviating” (read: not doing) an assignment.

To Mr. Silk, I really did appreciate all of your vaguely math-related puns and stick-figure drawings.

And to Ms. Stahl – my advisor, my role model – four years was not nearly enough time for me to learn even a fraction of what I wanted you to teach me.

It is with this gratitude for my teachers that I look towards second semester – a well-deserved opportunity to relax, but also a chance to recognize the privilege I have, to continue to cultivate my interests and to thank deeply those who have influenced me.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on Jan. 27, 2016