Lives in 300 words part two: Stories from the Lab community

“3… 2… 1… Go!”  Green Day blasts through the gym speakers, half-drowned out by the roar of 20 rowing machines. Twenty-nine-year-old Zach Silva’s machine is in the middle of the class. Each steady pull on the machine draws him closer to a poster of himself hung across the room. The poster declares him “Athlete of the Month,” the result of two years of 4:30 a.m wake-ups and thousan...

When a student squats without a safety rack, Luke Zavala lets them know where they are. When a student deadlifts with a round back, he demonstrates the right way. Mr. Zavala is conscious of danger in the fitness center. As someone who has overcome injuries, his goal is to keep the students healthy.  Mr. Zavala knows a thing or two about setting and meeting goals. He tore both ACLs in high s...

At 7:53 on a bitter-cold Thursday morning, students hastily walk through the large wooden doors into Judd Hall. They pause only for a second to tap their ID card and leave themselves just enough time to rush to their first period class. With each tap, a Lab student’s face pops up on the smaller of the two monitors, which face inwards to the desk.  And, like a chain reaction, a warm welcome a...

Every morning, junior Jungwoo Park walks the short distance from his home to his school. Some mornings, like this one, he runs. He makes it to his first class, chemistry, with no time to spare.  During the day, he drifts from class to class. He talks to people, and when he’s free he works or watches YouTube. After years of playing video games, he recently decided to uninstall everything. He felt like they w...

Eleven years of a friendship means you two have stood the test of time. Your friend has been with you through every move, every birthday, every heartbreak.  Eleven years means you know your friend well. You know what they like —getting out of the house and wandering their neighborhood, what they don’t like. You know their favorite food. You know their personality, that they are sassy and stu...

Slabs of snow slide down slanted glass windows. The room is silent beyond the scratch of pencil on paper. A student sits perched on a high stool, tucked into a paint swab covered table. Chin down.  Third and seventh period, every single day. When Tech Nix settles in Sunny Neater or Brian Wildeman’s Gordon Parks classrooms, they become who they love most. Tech the oil painter. Tech the illu...