Ah autumn, the days are long and hot, and the leaves will soon begin to fall. It’s back to school and back to the academic routine, back to worksheets and schedules and maybe, just maybe, back to learning. (Or is that asking too much?)

To kick off the school year, I decided to ask my peers some questions, just in case they weren’t answering enough of them in class.

Question: “If you could teleport anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?”

“I would teleport to Salzburg, Austria because it’s a small yet quaint European town with a great view of the Alps. There’s actually a lot of history there.” sophomore Zach Freeman

“I say New Zealand because that’s where they filmed The Lord of the Rings.” freshman Jose Corea

“Beijing. It was the first place that popped in my mind.” senior Adam Walthall

“I would teleport to Augusta to go play golf.” sophomore John Ciulla

“I would teleport to my couch and play my NCAA Dynasty. I literally have gone undefeated for the last three years and haven’t been to a national championship.” sophomore Luke Mizell

“I’d go to Switzerland because it’s very scenic, has great views and it’s a very tranquil place.” senior Rohan Lakhani

“Probably somewhere in the Alaskan tundra so I could do my homework in peace. Besides, it’s like 96 degrees here right now.” senior Alexander Hirschfele

“Korea, South Korea, because I love K-Pop.” junior Christina Esser

“My bed, no that’s a lie. Where would I actually teleport to … I would go to Michigan right now; I love Michigan … I love the lakes there.” sophomore Zoe Jentzen

“I would teleport into … where’s that place they keep all the gold in the US, Fort Kennedy? No, Fort Knox. I would teleport into Fort Knox just to show that I could get past the security and screw with the people there.” sophomore Brynne Keeney

“The beach.” sophomore Emma Tomlin

“I would teleport to an old Nirvana concert.” junior Alexa Condos

“I would teleport to a One Direction concert.” junior Vanessa Wong

“The Amazon shipment center, the section where they keep all the books.” sophomore Emily Krakow.

“The Big Pond in Massachusetts. It’s about a few feet from being a lake.” sophomore Jessica Wiedemeier.

“I would teleport home. I would do absolutely nothing, just eat all day I guess.” sophomore Jasmine Fail

“My bed, where I could sleep forever and not wake up. Sorry, that’s really morbid.” sophomore Saarila Kenkare

“The USS Enterprise.” sophomore Winifred Duncan

Question: “If you could invent a class to take this year, what would it be?”

“I think a Star Trek class that teaches you about Star Trek and what Star Trek wanted to teach you.” sophomore Winifred Duncan

“I’d probably make a class that would show you how to draw certain actors.” sophomore Brynne Keeney

“I would create … I’m trying to think about it, hang on … maybe like a study hall class where you just like, don’t have to do anything: you could just to homework.” junior Caroline Crossland

“Blow-off 101.” senior Matthew Michael

“I already have two hours of film class and one hour of tech class after lunch, so it’s pretty chill.” senior William Brown

“I would make an Intro to Chem. class so you could take Chem. as a freshman instead of Biology, because I don’t like Biology but Chemistry is cool.” freshman Callen Ussery

“I would take a class in drawing male models. We would just get to look at them for a long time. That would be educational.” senior Christine Evans

“I don’t know maybe like an apps class so you could learn about different apps that you could put on your iPad.” sophomore Soibhan Carmody

“A class about cats; it would replace all my classes and we would learn about cats all day long.” junior Anna Bobbit

“Koine, common Greek” sophomore Grant West

“I would invent knitting class.” junior Christian Skrudland

“I want to invent a cooking class where we cook Chinese food and Thai noodles and some good, hot, warm food. And we would have it instead of lunch because that saves time.” junior Peter Wang

“It would be nap-time. We would turn off the lights and have a little blanket and the floor would be carpeted.” senior Juan De Haro

“How to use your breasts to get what you want. But it’s only for women of course. That’s actually a really useful skill, but it takes time to learn.” senior Hayley Bishop

Question: “School’s not the only place you can learn: what’s one thing you learned this summer that you wouldn’t have learned at school?”

“Political parties suck.” freshman Leo Zamarripa

“How to build a Tesla coil.” freshman Callen Ussery

“That even the things that bring you the most joy can bring you the most pain. So I was in the movie theater and this was the 6th time I had gone to see Star Trek Into Darkness and I was sitting there by myself because no one wanted to go with me. I was sitting there, it was the scene right before Bones discovered that he could bring Kirk back, and I was crying so hard that the lady sitting next to me gave me her napkins and some of her soda to calm me down. That’s when I realized that though Star Trek brings me so much joy and taught me so much, it also brings me so much pain because I am so emotionally close to the characters.” sophomore Winifred Duncan

“I learned that clapping is the loudest non vocal sound that humans commonly make.”  sophomore Brynne Keeney

“I learned that vampire squids eat marine snow, which is the scum of the ocean floor.” sophomore Margaret Brookshire

“What a woman looks like when she’s only wearing body paint. I was in Times Square on a college tour and it was night-time. There were people dressed up and there was one woman only wearing body paint. There was a big crowd around her that was, surprisingly, mostly women.” senior Hayley Bishop

“I learned how to wait tables at my camp. It’s an all girl’s camp and the oldest campers work with the kitchen staff as waitresses or scrapers, at the salad bar, stuff like that. I wouldn’t learn that here.” sophomore Lilly Walsh

“Take the cooling fluid cap off on a car, otherwise it volcanos everywhere. I saw it happen.” senior Juan De Haro

“I learned how to drop kick, not like dropping and kicking a football, but like dropping parallel and kicking someone in the chest, successfully.” sophomore Natalie DeBehnke

“The ‘q’ in Q-tips stands for quality.” sophomore Soibhan Carmody

“One thing that I learned this summer was not to go on hikes in Mexico because there are dead bodies there … Yes, that’s from experience. There was a guy who slipped and then hit his head, and he died.” sophomore Robert Ehle

“I learned that people are annoying … no wait, I learned that at school.” sophomore Kati Chen

“I learned how to take care of chickens when I was pet-sitting for my neighbor for a week and a half.” sophomore Julia Schoos

“I learned that things are much more fun during the summer than they are here at school because I hate it here. But I try to make good grades because I’m Asian. Let me say one more thing: me and Jed Lee are best friends.” freshman Anya Qureshi

“That it’s a really bad idea to go on a three-day road trip in the desert in the middle of the summer.” freshman Maura Quinn

“That if you’re a celebrity, you should not put your phone number on twitter. God, Misha.” freshman Brianna So-morris

“Abby, I’m gonna need that rusty fork back. It’s self explanatory.” freshman Ben Roberts

“How to work with people, overly-complicated and exaggerated people … I learned that [while] working at the Long Center all summer. A lot of the actors and singers, and a few people on the creative teams — basically everybody actually — was really dramatic. It’s theater and everybody has to be over-exaggerated.” senior William Brown