7 Pieces of Advice From Yours Truly

May 27, 2025 by Ava Tatum (‘25) I’m passing the torch soon. I’ll no longer be the hilarious, beautiful, charismatic, smart, (did I mention drop dead gorgeous?) senior on Toga’s school grounds. I am that person that peaked in high school, so I’ll be pursuing a career in education so that I can come back as soon as possible. Until then, I’ve created a list of (somewhat satirical) pieces of advice for freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and super seniors at SSHS.

1. 1. “Join” Every Club: Go to the first 3 meetings of every club you possibly can; club photos get taken at the start of the year and when yearbooks get printed, you’ll be featured like 11 times. Secret hack: If you go to 5 Lightning Rod meetings and write consistently, you’ll become a staff writer and Editor in Chief, Olivia Clemmensen will personally hand you $80 (it works I swear).

2. 2. Disappear: Show up every day for the first three weeks of school, make new friends, become chummy with your teachers, then suddenly stop showing up for two months. In those two months, you’re going to legally change your name and learn Russian. When you come back to school, speak exclusively in Russian, you’ll be the cool, mysterious, new kid in no time. I’m starting early so that I can do this when I get to college. как мой русский?

3. 3. Pavlov Your Teachers: Study very hard in your class, get all A’s and then whenever you receive a test or essay back, snap your fingers. This will psychologically train your teachers to give you an A every time you snap. I haven’t done any real work in my classes since October.

4. 4. Teleport: Don’t actually teleport. Start being very sneaky about how you get to school and back. If you take the bus, start paying your bus driver $5 a day to drop you off a mile away from the school. If you walk, just take a weird back route. If you drive, park your car downtown. If you get dropped off, ask your parent/guardian to drop you off near the district building instead of the main crosswalk. Then when people ask you how you get to school use one of these handy responses to mystify and confuse them:

• • “I live at school; my bedroom is room B118.”

• • “I teleport here.”

• • “What do you mean? You drive me here and take me home.”

• • “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”

I’m not exactly sure why you would need to use this tip, but it works, nobody knows how I get to school and how I get home.

5. 5. Crying: If I’m going to be known for one thing, I want it to be how many times I’ve cried in school. You don’t necessarily have to make your goal crying, it can be crashing out, sneezing, making inside jokes. Just something you can track. Then at the end of the year, turn it into a graph. Make a game with your friends! Place bets! It’s a great bonding experience.

6. 6. Join The Lightning Rod.

7. 7. Do Whatever You Want: Obviously don’t do WHATEVER you want but just don’t be afraid of getting bullied or being the “weird” kid. I’ve survived four years of high school without being bullied (to my face) and I say/do insane stuff all the time. Don’t let high school de-weird you, and even if you do get bullied, it’s good for the soul (or at least that’s what I’ve been told by the people I bully).

I got a little sappy at the end, but do not be confused, that’s not my real personality. Everyone in The Lightning Rod (including Ms. Cowburn) will describe me as heartless and evil. Good luck Toga, without me, you’re going to need it.