News and Notes 3.27

Happy Friday, all! My name is Laura Sanderson, and as of last Sunday, I am now an official Whitmore Lake High School alumna. After moving to Whitmore Lake from South Lyon in 2013, I started attending WLHS at the beginning of my freshman year. The past four years have been unlike anything I had imagined when I first began my journey here. Even more unexpectedly, they have flown by. Before I knew it, my senior year was snowballing to a bittersweet end. I realized that I was going to miss this school, all the people in it, all the small details, traditions, and even quirks of life in Whitmore Lake.

 

This is when I saw a Ted Talk about a project called 1 Second Everyday, and knew it was something I wanted to do to further cherish the memories I’ve made this year. For the last fifty days of my high school career, I recorded at least one second of video every day that documented my personal experience as a senior at WLHS. Anything from my morning coffee, or a friend’s laugh, to Quiz Bowl State’s, Senior Skip Day, and more. While I also love to take photos, these videos enrich the memories further by including motion and sound. Even though they may seem simple to an outsider, just one second of video can trigger entire flashbacks to memories that may have otherwise gotten lost in the craziness of my life. I really wish that I would have started doing my 1 Second Everyday project sooner, but I hope that maybe some high schoolers now will start their own. I plan on continuing to record little bits of my life for an entire year, sort of as a video scrapbook. I look forward to not just telling, but also showing my kids what it was like to graduate high school, to go off to college, and more.

 

This fall, I will be studying at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Though I will only be 15 minutes away, there really is no place like home. Whitmore Lake shaped my identity and goals and led me to the success I have achieved today. I am very thankful to have this little fifty second video to remind me of how lucky I am to have been a part of this community, and I am so happy to share it with you.

 

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to these memories and to the lasting impact that WLHS has had on my character. I know that even as time persists, and my red and white fades to maize and blue, I will still always be a Trojan.

 

-Laura Sanderson

WLHS, Class of 2017