(June 17, 2003) — Picture this. There are bags under your eyes and drool on your history textbook. It’s 4:34 AM and you’ve been stuck on page 312 since 3:00 AM. You’ve consumed 40 ounces of Starbucks double-shot espresso in the last 5 hours. Sound familiar? Junior year was also a time during which seniors discovered a certain group of people they could associate with. After looking at schedules and after attending the classes for a few weeks, seniors noticed that many of their peers in English class were also in the same history, science and Spanish class. Some seniors hardly even saw their classmates from 9th grade English. Students who signed up for AP courses usually took multiple ones and ended up with the same group of students who wanted the same thing. This was the perfect opportunity to find common ground and interests in this group of classmates and eventually friends. For other seniors, seeing the same people multiple times in a single day was bothersome. However, no one could deny the ready accountability and advice that several teachers were eager to give. During a free class, Sung Chong was usually in Ms. Martin’s class across the hallway from Publications. He could “talk to her about things that [aren’t] class based. Who’d have thought teachers would have personalities,” joked Chong. One of the better things about Clark is the group of helpful teachers who have good opinions and advice. Many students favored Ms. Sajjadieh and Ms. Doll, with whom they were able to just walk in and talk to about whatever situation. “It’s like a Clark version of Mr. Feeny,” Chong remarked. Nevertheless, there was a disruption in the close-knit feeling of Clark’s own season of Boy Meets World on September 11th of 2001. Its effects varied from student to student if it affected some at all, but to Gessica Cuccinello, it was a turning point in her life. Although she had hardly been acquainted, her cousin was on flight 11, the first one to crash into the World Trade Center that day. However, the tragedy of her cousin had the least part in bringing about the transformation in her life. She had to grow from a very sheltered child to a young adult who taught herself that there wouldn’t always be someone there for her. She developed her own views and realized that “we’re brought up in a society that makes us believe that nothing would happen.” The September 11th disaster proved otherwise. Things lightened up in second semester after testing in March at the Junior Prom. Lauren Tharp, who had attended Junior Prom in both her freshman and sophomore years, felt that her own Junior Prom was more meaningful because “there were actually people from [my] own class. It was my junior prom and my fellow juniors.” One of the highlights of the dance was dancing with her “big brother” Leonard Ortega. Although the school year was a rollercoaster ride with drops, loops, and harsh turns, junior year was a year during which seniors matured and found a group of peers who strived for the same goal.