On top of seven classes a day, junior Jack Monterusso does extracurricular activities all year round.
Jack’s days start off with a zero hour, which is taught by band teacher Joel Burns. Since he does drumline, a zero hour is a required class so that they can get ready for the marching band halftime show.
“Zero hour is [a class] that all percussionists have to do,” Jack said. “We have to come in; it starts at 6:45 [a.m.]. The first semester is just drumline, and then the second semester is basically percussion ensemble. We have pan pieces, marimba pieces, we do solos, and whatnot.”
After zero hour, he goes through the rest of his school day pretty much like any other student. In the fall, he goes from school and moves directly to cross-country practice.
After cross country, he doesn’t have enough time to head home; instead, it’s straight to marching band rehearsal. Marching band rehearsal goes until about 9 p.m. Throughout the day, he has to try to find time to work on homework, eat, and rest. His days in the fall get tiring, but to Jack, it’s worth it.
During the winter, he doesn’t have much to do other than attend his track club meetings about once a week. He’s a part of a club called the Chocolate Milk Chuggers, which was created by some of the seniors at FHC.
“Chuggers is an indoor track club that anyone can join from any school,” Jack said. “We have guys from Northern, guys from Lowell, guys from Eastern, and guys from Central. We have indoor track races basically all around the state. We have a marathon in February. The whole point [of the club] is to hang out with your buddies, chug chocolate milk—we’re partnered with TruMoo—and then we just have fun and run.”
Chuggers meets about once a week during the winter, so since it’s much less busy than Jack’s used to, during the winter season, Jack has to try to find something to do while he’s at home. One thing that he manages to keep himself busy with is his podcast called YapFest. Thanks to Jack’s sixth-hour math class, he became closer to senior Zach Ruffer and found himself talking to Zach frequently in the parking lot after school. One day, they decided to just grab some lawn chairs, put them in the back of Jack’s truck, and film themselves talking about everything and anything that they could think of. They even created a channel called YapFest with Zach and Jack.
The first few of their episodes were pretty planned out—they talked about things like conspiracy theories and rated things like the best lunch foods. Eventually, they wanted to get back to the original point of YapFest. They just wanted to talk about whatever they wanted.
“[The episodes] are about everything,” Jack said. “We have Christmas episodes and Halloween episodes. One day, we just talked about people with red hair, and other days, we talked about conspiracy theories or got interviewed by ChatGPT, and just random things like that.”
After filming over ten different episodes and after about three months of filming, the school year is starting to come to an end. Once the year comes to an end, Zach is going to be leaving to head to college. This leaves an important question—what is going to happen to YapFest?
“Zach’s a senior, and I’m a junior; he’s going to Cornerstone next year,” Jack said. “Since Cornerstone’s right down the road, we’re thinking either we just end [Yapfest] and call it that, he’s going to pass it down to his brother [sophomore] Aaron [Ruffer], or he’s just going to pull up after school and talk. We’ll still be friends since it’s a more local school.”
Since we’re beginning to get closer to the end of the school year, Jack is about to begin his spring season. The spring season is what brings track. Once the track season starts, Jack is going to start getting much busier than he is during the winter. He’s once again going to have to start finding the time to do his homework and take a break, and he’s going to have to get used to being busy again.
“[My schedule] varies a lot by the season,” Jack said. “Wake up usually around 5:30 [a.m.] for zero hour, and go to zero hour and school. In the fall, I stay at school until cross country starts at 3:30 [p.m.], and then if I have band rehearsal, I stay there until probably around 9 [p.m.]. Once winter comes around, there’s no cross country, so it’s just straight home after school, and I’ll usually find something to do anyway. In the spring, when track starts, it’s basically the same thing as fall except minus marching band. It’s pretty busy.”
His days are so busy that it’s hard to find the time to hang out with friends and family. That’s another reason that the extracurriculars are so good for him. Thanks to extracurricular activities, he’s met his friends who introduced him to even more activities. The stress is one of the best parts of his year.
He’s been doing most of these activities since his freshman year, and he doesn’t think that he’d do it any differently.
“[My days] get busy, but I’d honestly rather be too busy than not be busy at all,” Jack said. “Rushing around in the fall is the busiest time of year for me, and I enjoy always having something to do.”
