“[Coming to school for the first time as a sophomore], I was very nervous. I felt like I wasn’t going to know anybody. I felt like [CHS] wasn’t going to be very welcoming [or] diverse. But I was proven wrong. I became really comfortable. I feel like I can be myself. To an extent [it feels harder to make friends]. Everybody already had their little friend groups. I feel like some people had more people to come with them [from middle school] than others. So that’s going to be more challenging, but I’m optimistic that I’ll find friends. Sometimes, [when I] see a crowd of people I just walk up to them, and I join the conversation. If they vibe with it, they vibe with it. If they don’t, peace from the Middle East. I just walk away, you know. That’s my process. And I hand them my phone if we clicked and had a real connection, and they put their number in, and that’s it.”