Ever since the coronavirus pandemic, Maywood Academy High School (MAHS) students, including myself, have not been able to see their friends. This can be especially relatable to many students who would go out with their friends to their special hangout place.

“I feel like I’ve gotten separated from someone close to me,” said Jeremy Pantoja, a senior at MAHS.

I can relate to Jeremy’s idea because during school, I would hang out with my best friend Kimbo (Kimberly Flores) a lot. We would do almost everything together and now since quarantine, we haven’t been hanging out. We have been more distant from each other because we don’t text or Facetime. I miss the bond that we had.

“We would hang out after school to have some fun,” said Pantoja.

I connected strongly with this quote because that’s when Kimberly and I would go to Knott”s Berry Farm: every Friday after school. When it was Friday, Kimberly and I already knew it was going to be fun because it was a Friday; Fridays are the last day of the school week, which means staying out late. The adrenaline rush of the rollercoasters, although it was scary sometimes, was an exciting feeling.

“My friends and I would hang out from when school ended until around six, sometimes even later,” said Hervin Torreblanca a senior at MAHS.

I can somewhat understand this because we would try to leave right after school but we would have to wait for an Uber to get to Kimbo’s house. Then sometimes there would be some traffic because obviously, it was Friday so a lot of people were

on the freeways. We would stay at Knott’s until 10 or 11 PM. Her mom would pick us up and sometimes buy us food on the way back home.

Some students need to share how they are feeling or even chismear, and meeting with friends on Fridays helps them express how they have been feeling throughout the week. 

At Knott’s, Kimbo and I would “spill the tea” because we just needed to get things off our chests. We mostly just talked about how we were doing and feeling, and what was going on with our lives. For example, when we were waiting in line for rides, we talked about these things because we just got bored waiting there. When we really ran out of ideas, then we would just gossip.

“So the thing that would make this fun was being able to gossip throughout the whole day,” said  Torreblanca, a student at MAHS.