Feature Photo By: Peter Vo – Peter Vo poses for a senior picture.
Editor’s Note: Senior Salutes are an outlet for graduating seniors on The Raider Review staff to share their concluding thoughts about anything involving their last four years of high school/their time leading up to this point. Congratulations graduating class of 2019.
I don’t know what my story is. When someone asks me, “who are you?,” or, “what’s your story?,” I can’t seem to answer that question. I don’t know if it’s the ambiguity of the question that startles me or the intricacies that line up within such a question that renders me to not answer.
I don’t know who I am. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism that I’ve developed. To say I don’t know to such things instead of taking the question head-on and screaming at it from the top of my lungs, “HOW DARE YOU ASK SUCH A STUPID QUESTION?” I’ve been battling with this feeling inside of me for years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever figured out the answer to the question until this past year.
I adore stories. Everyone has one. Whether a person gives it thought or not, it doesn’t matter. Through my bickering and unknowingness in such a world, I’ve learned to embrace other people’s stories – considering mine along the way. Photography is an arch to stretch stories in a way no other art form can.
When I fell in love with photography, I fell in love with stories. It’s by grace that I’m able to find something has fostered my creativity and bliss. It’s a passion that absorbs me to the fullest.
It’s an art that questions that whys of life, that exploits the beauty of life, that moves life forward. It’s an art that has told me my story. Photography has given me a sense of who I am. It’s given me my story in this one, treasured life that I possess. I know what pure bliss is. I know what my story is. My name is Peter Vo, and I’m made to tell the stories of others. That will be my story.
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With this, I hope you understand the importance of a story. These four years really flew by. I mean, teachers don’t joke around, past students don’t either – high school is a breeze. Now that it’s almost over, it’s definitely bittersweet.
You don’t think you’ll miss certain things, but when you’re here, you definitely regret the times you took things for granted.
I’m gonna miss a lot of things. I’m gonna miss those afternoon car-rides after schools with the homies, I’m going to miss joking around in every class that I’m in, I’m going to miss running around school acting like a freshman as a senior, I’m going to miss the amazing teachers that have supported me thus far, I’m going to miss singing songs on the theater stage, I’m going to miss the cafeteria food (seriously I am), I’m going to miss these familiar hallways and faces, and if you don’t take the time to appreciate these things, you’ll miss it too.
Find your story. Be proud of the life that you lead within these walls. You don’t get second chances.
I’ll stop my bickering, it’s time to get busy living.
See ya later Rangeview.
(And to those I never got to take a picture of — Tristan, Dom, Kenny, and whoever else I forgot — thanks for everything).
