Articles written by Leah Packer


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  • Looking back at junior year

    Leah Packer|Updated Jun 5, 2024

    I was definitely warned about junior year. I remember being in seventh grade and thinking about high school as this huge, foreboding experience that I would never get through. I would sit in my class, glad to be only in middle school, where the stakes felt low. People talked about high school, and when I got to high school, they still talked about high school. Maybe the fantasies of "High School Musical" rubbed off on everyone? Except for the part where everyone breaks into...

  • Elementary school offers inspiration

    Leah Packer|Updated Apr 17, 2024

    It was the day that I had been waiting for. My fourth-grade teacher passed around the large packets filled with lists of activities and choices for the upcoming special day. I scanned through the options, circling the words that jumped out to me the most on the page. Baking. Forensic science. Firefighting. I ranked my top activities and submitted them to my teacher. The purpose of these thick, white packets was for High Interest Day, an event in elementary school where...

  • An extra day to have some fun

    Leah Packer|Updated Feb 28, 2024

    As I began to write this column, I realized it would be published on Feb. 29, a leap day. Now as everybody knows, leap years only come once every four years, making them a special and somewhat rare occasion. However, for me at least, and I'm sure for many, they aren't very significant. And I don't mean to be rude to the lucky (or perhaps unlucky) few who get to have their birthday only once every four years. I wish you all a very happy birthday. Anyway, as I was pondering the...

  • Riding into the new year refreshed

    Leah Packer|Updated Jan 10, 2024

    Sometimes high school feels like trying to board a train at a busy station. Platforms and classes and trains and deadlines and tickets and papers and times and due dates and people and people — so many people trying to hold on and get to their destinations. When winter starts to approach, all the passengers turn their focus toward riding to the end of first semester, waiting to finally be able to rest from the flurry of activity. But, for the past few years, final exams a...

  • Sometimes paper is preferred

    Leah Packer|Updated Nov 21, 2023

    One night I was sitting at my desk, contemplating the very mundane task of either moving my tired body to the closet to grab my math textbook or jumping through the hurdles of pulling up the textbook online. I chose the latter, clicking through my teacher's information page, clicking the website, clicking the textbook and clicking on the page number on the little box at the bottom of the screen. Clicking, clicking, clicking. And all my lovely hard work was well worth it as I...

  • Finally in the thick of school

    Leah Packer|Updated Oct 4, 2023

    I have always hated getting shots, COVID, flu - and I am sure I hated getting the chickenpox vaccine when I was young, too. Flu season would come around, and I would push off getting the shot until the leaves on the trees had curled and crisped and crumpled on the ground and the air had a hint of winter breeze. When I was younger it was the pain that scared me, but also the second of anticipation right before the jab. I like to think I am a lot less scared now, but that...