Lucy is a senior entering her first year writing for The Central Trend. She has been entertained and positively in love with writing and reading for as long as she can remember and cannot wait to expand and improve her writing further. Lucy runs varsity track for her school and has been involved with club track over the years as well. As senior year starts and concludes all too quickly, Lucy strives to create millions of memories, all comprised of her favorite things: friends, sunshine, running, and her adorable puppy, Jackie.
A single bench rests in the middle of a gold-rimmed room.
Intricate trim traces the exterior of the cavernous room, adding layers of dimension along with the sectioned wall paneling.
Fifteen...
I stumbled across an archived document. Untattered, contrary to the crinkle-edged papers the actors unsheathe in the movies. No scorch marks sear through the paper from the wrath of dragons or wars.
It...
I cry a lot.
My tears operate independently: reclusive, streaming down my face without regard for happiness or sadness. Simply salty, stemming from the small glands above my eyes and funneling profusely...
When I was packing for my recent trip to Spain, I knew I had to step up my fashion game.
I had seen countless videos on Instagram and TikTok about day-to-day outfit inspiration and guides from European...
My mom would pick me up early from school four days a week for gymnastics.
She would have a bottle for me filled with ice water, a grilled cheese, and a bottle of ibuprofen to combat any lingering ailments...
The houses, splayed like an accordion of pastels, radiated softly against lukewarm sunlight and relentless breeze.
Just an hour north, after traversing through kilometers of verdurous farmland, fields...
I am uncomfortable right now.
I will be moving 700 miles away from home in just a few months, my classes are becoming increasingly challenging, and I am pressured to form a new friend group once I start...
I have played my violin for seven years, yet my fingers still trip over each other whenever I try to play the fast notes.
My bow squeaks in the wrong direction, and, half of the time, I have to simply...
Senior Nora Blok spent this past summer evolving into a true European.
Nora spent her summer strolling through Paris, spending time with her friend Luna in Cologne, Germany, visiting little coastal...
Last year, as a junior, I thought I had "senioritis."
School was dull, my motivation was dwindling, and I simply didn’t feel like I was myself in terms of sociability and productivity. I was only...
One sprint around a few of the world's cities gave me the vaguest impression that humans think very highly of their superiority.
Take New York, for example: The city is lined with shining buildings,...
As a passionate traveler, sophomore Clare Knoester has seen the world.
With that, Hawaii has earned a special place in her heart. After traveling to the Big Island last year with her cousins, aunt,...
I read Powerless by Lauren Roberts amid a flurry of other high fantasy books.
After a long stretch of reading intense series like A Court of Thorns and Roses, The Empyrean, Crescent City, and Throne...
A palette in summer consists of a splattering of ginger, tinged lavender, glassy blues, and bosky banks of verdurous greens.
A palette in winter is an excess of subdued gray—maybe brown on a good...
Senior Claire Mast is quite an ambitious traveler.
In the past, her travels have taken her to far corners of the country, stretching from the South’s dominating mountains to summer camps in the...
Rotting days are a professional sport.
Kicking back in bed under a cloud of comfy blankets. Incessant scrolling on social media. An occasional nap to offset the other simple activities. Maybe a Starbucks...
Even when I was younger, summer has always been a time of sweet renewal.
My hair grows blonder, my skin tanner, and my overall disposition a dozen notches lighter. Now, summer is an outlet for me...
In the past, the week leading up to the Winterfest has been defined by the same, comforting traditions.
This year, however, marketing teacher Kristi O’Brien, who has been in charge of Winterfest for...
The 2022 FIFA World Cup was a spectacle that entranced the whole world.
The tournament itself lasted around a month, but the spirit and fervor commenced long before the games began, and its legacy is...
It really did feel like a painting.
The delicately airbrushed clouds could have been pulled directly from a Van Gogh painting, and the ocean of a city punctuated the horizon, only interrupted by tiered...
Senior Abrielle Hayes’s days revolve around one thing: the daily Sudoku puzzle.
“[Sudoku] is my favorite thing ever,” Abrielle said. “I’m obsessed with it. I have to do the daily puzzle every...
I have never excelled at any form of physical art.
I can harness ideas in my head down to each minuscule detail, yet when I attempt to display my thoughts in the form of visuals it always ends up bland...
My first memories of my mailbox occur in summer’s decline, mere weeks before the first week of school. The air was always so sweet and warm, foreshadowing the coming weeks—azure skies, lofty zephyrs,...
First of all, above anything, it is still a city of dreamers.
Many old American towns have relinquished their yearning crowns, that faint spark that promised to preserve, treasure, and cherish the ambitions...
Senior Parker Ludwig has had difficulties in the past with driving in the winter.
The event went something like this: the neighborhood roads were slightly slick with ice, and his car turned too quickly...
I What a Dog by Kevin Yoder
~ Bursley School ~ 1978
~ Mrs. McKellar ~ 1st Grade
“I’d like a dog,” said Tim.
“No,” said mom.
Dad came home.
“What’s wrong Tim?”
“I what a...
My family- the best team
I love every moment and gathering together. Our Fourth of July trips, getting absolutely demolished while tubing, playing left-right-center with our baby Jesus—all of...
Ever since the 2022 World Cup, I have become a passionate soccer fan.
Once I started to understand the gravity behind the sport and the sense of unity that soccer provided for fans, players, and teams,...
Junior Chloe Flowers-Stiles establishes a happy lifestyle by simply doing what she loves most: eating food.
Apart from indulging in her typical three meals a day, Chloe also explores her cultivated...
The object is a once-shattered scrap of white ceramic adorned with bulbous flower decals. A fluffy pink pom-pom is smushed between the bird’s tapered face and the rest of its broken body: a filler for...
My dad has recounted his experience in Guadalajara, Mexico, countless times.
As a part of the study abroad program at Grand Valley State University, he flocked to the heart of Jalisco for an entire...
Senior year is a year of finalities.
It is a year of decisions, an era of scattered jubilation and strain, and, most importantly, it is an age of bittersweet memories.
Capturing the essence of...
I was hunched in the corner of the girl’s locker room, tears flowing freely down my face as I sobbed into my phone.
I should have been outside on the track, warming up before one...
Reading slump is real.
Arguably, it is one of the most hopeless feelings in the creative world, contending only with the devastating spell of writer’s block. Writer’s block is controllable, something...
My friends say that I spontaneously combust.
Spontaneous combustion is when a piece of organic matter—damp hay, coal, lawn clippings—bursts into flames with no apparent cause. It's instant combustion....
