A Sporadic NSA Story, but a Story Nonetheless
By Karis T.
I’ve always been one of those weird kids who loved school and (almost) everything about it. I love learning, asking questions, writing essays, completing assignments, and having the general productivity of working. I have never been more aware of that fact than I have been since starting NSA. As a big extrovert, I greatly miss the social aspects of a brick and mortar school, but my competitive nature is satisfied by still having classmates, my desire to go at my own pace has been fulfilled, and the flexible schedule that NorthStar provides is the best option I could have ever found for the number of dance classes and rehearsals that I have to work around during the day.
I’m the second oldest of the four kids in my family. I have an older sister, a younger brother, and another sister who’s younger. My family moved to Uganda, Africa when I was five years old and homeschooling became the only option for us. My mom taught us for years and for the older three of us all being two years apart, it worked surprisingly well. When we transitioned back to the United States, I was nine, my brother was seven, my sister was 11, and we had previously added another family member about a year earlier. The best option became public school. So we were enrolled in public school for about a year. Still in a period of transition, we lived in six different houses in a year and a half. So naturally, the best option became homeschooling. . .again.
When we moved back overseas, this time to the Middle East, I was 11. My older sister, brother, and I were put in a private American International School. It sounds fancy, I know…..it wasn’t. When you think of American International Schools, big, fancy academies come to mind. This school had four Americans, three of whom were my siblings and me. The building was an old motel, there was only one class per grade level, and the biggest my class ever got was 13 people. I spent 7th and 8th grade there, and long story short, the academic and social environments, education, and lasting impact weren’t great. After my sisters’ freshman year, my parents pulled her out. My mom spent long, tedious hours looking for an online school that she could attend and get a good education from that provided some degree of flexibility. She ended up here at NorthStar while my brother and I remained at the international school for another year. After 8th grade, my parents decided that it would be best to also pull me out of the international school and enroll me in NorthStar for a better high school education.
I was enrolled in NorthStar in the fall semester of 2018 and I’ve been here ever since. When you hear the phrase “NorthStar has something for everyone” you don’t ever realize it’s true until you experience it for yourself. For both my freshman and sophomore year, I kept completely to myself as FirstClass, and Buzz overwhelmed me. The summer before my junior year, I made the executive decision that I wanted to be a part of something. So before I could change my mind, I said “Mom, I want to be on the school newspaper staff. . .do you think I can do it?” It would be a lie if I said I joined the Navigator because I love writing. I enjoy writing essays, but I’d never done journalism before in my life. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. Ultimately, I joined for the people. I wanted to be a part of something with other people I could connect with, and use to connect with others. Through those connections, I’ve come to enjoy writing more, I just had to figure out what I was doing first.
Columns: 🗞️Staff Stories
Karis T. lives in the Middle East with her parents and two of her three siblings. She is an 11th grader and has been a student at NorthStar for three years. She has been dancing for most of her life and is completely in love with the art of ballet. In addition to being a writer on the Navigator staff, Karis is also a member of the National Honor Society and works at her dance studio as a ballet teacher for 3-5 year olds. She hopes to pursue a career in athletic training or physical therapy in the future.