Myra Malik
EE: Running out onto the basketball court, yellow and black khunda in hand, freshman Myra Malik began her halftime performance at a Golden State Warriors game. With its energetic steps and traditional colorful costumes, bhangra has become part of many of her favorite memories of 2024.
MM: I love getting to connect with my culture and people who also think similarly in that sense — to express the joy and the happiness of that dance. Those are some really special moments for me.
EE: Malik’s love for bhangra led her to join the MVHS Bhangra team as she transitioned from middle to high school, a time she recalls as being full of questions and pressure to define her future. Though she acknowledges that many freshmen start out overwhelmed by the fast pace of high school, she says she tried to see 2024 as a chance to build her personality and find opportunities that interest her.
MM: Some points I felt like I was going on the right path, I knew where I wanted to go. And then other points, it all just came crashing down, like “What am I doing? How am I supposed to do well in high school?” Of course, if you want to know what you’re doing, you have to go through some sort of instability to find out what works and what doesn’t, and I think 2024 was honestly great for that.
EE: One of the experiences Malik credits with helping her focus her interests is her summer courses in machine learning. Though she didn’t go in expecting to enjoy them, she developed a passion for how machine learning tied into research in space and physics. This led her to enroll in a space camp in Alabama, and while she loved participating in the program, she regrets not taking advantage of the connections it offered.
MM: We met these people in Blue Origin, and they said, “Come to us if you want an internship,” but I completely forgot. So I was bummed about that. Of course, it’s Blue Origin — I love space — and there’s that big internship that was practically at my fingertips, and I just forgot to get their email. Moving on to 2025, I definitely want to take advantage of those opportunities and have a better 2025.
EE: In the new year, Malik hopes to shift her mindset away from perfectionism and putting pressure on herself, instead looking to find work that is meaningful to her and being driven by that passion.
MM: I want to make a change to just enjoy the work that I’m doing and make it so that it’s not a burden to reply to an email — it’s not a burden to show up to something, but it’s actually something that you enjoy doing from your heart.
Zhenhao Qi
EE: One of junior Zhenhao Qi’s most memorable experiences of 2024 was spending the summer with his relatives in China. The more he got to interact with them, the closer he felt to them and the more he learned about their lives compared to his life in America. He especially treasured this opportunity to connect because before that, most of what he knew of them was via their interactions on WeChat.
EE: Despite this enclave of stability, Qi felt his year was unpredictable overall, especially since his plans were often shifting or entirely out of his control. As part of that uncertainty, he says his friend groups changed significantly, which, though difficult, he believes it was for the better.
ZQ: Meeting new people is always great, and in some ways, my new friends are definitely better than my old ones, which kind of led to the falling out in the first place. As with many relationships, when you have a falling out, some part of it is in your hands and some part of it is not in your control. I’ve definitely purposefully avoided or not responded, but I would say it’s more of a mutual thing than one person does everything.
EE: With so much unpredictability, Qi does his best to control the parts of his life that he can, for example by finding ways to balance schoolwork and self-care activities like exercise and downtime, something he notes many students struggle with. He hopes to be more proactive going forward, especially by consistently putting effort into school and planning ahead.
ZQ: I want to start attending all of my classes, including both De Anza classes and Monta Vista classes. I’m sorry, Mrs. Collins, I know I dropped her class, but I’m making up for it in other ways. I want to take control of my life. I was tired of how I was reliant on extraneous or uncontrollable factors. I should be able to drive my own fulfillment and be fulfilled from the things that I want to be fulfilled from, not from external sources of validation or other things like that. I think this was a pretty significant mental change that caused me to become a better person.
Katie Collins
EE: Most days, math teacher Katie Collins wakes up unsure of whether she can make it to school. Sometimes, the pain and fatigue are so intense she can’t get out of bed; other days, they ebb enough for her to struggle through getting ready and showing up to teach. Ever since blood clots were first discovered in her lungs in January 2023, Collins’ worsening chronic illness has transformed both her daily life and her outlook on the new year.
KC: I would like to continue to be alive. When people ask me, that is my singular personal goal. For some people, they have the luxury of their bar being set much higher. For me, putting pants on in the morning is a pretty damn good bar too. Depending upon what’s going on in your life, that bar shifts.
EE: Years of fighting for insurance coverage and sick pay on top of dealing with chronic illness have colored her observations of American systems such that she sees a deep and urgent need for change, both in the nation and in the world.
KC: 2024 sucked. We were divided as a country. We became more divided. We fought with each other on issues that ultimately were fabricated to be issues. Then there was a single moment where the collective of the entire country came together on one particular instance and decided they all dislike something together, but we’re too ignorant and trusting of a system run by the billionaire oligarchy to actually ever come together and do anything about it, and we weren’t angry enough.
EE: To her, a major part of this change is the need for young people to shift their mindsets to adequately tackle emerging issues, including the expanding capabilities of AI, worsening economic inequality and the climate crisis. Though she recognizes some of her students are focused on the positive impact they can make, she says that that proportion needs to increase.
KC: Stop worrying about your grades and start worrying about being someone interesting and producing something of value and interest in the world, because the world isn’t going to be nicer to you and it’s not going to get better for you. It’s only going to get worse.
