Senior Lilly Penner’s philosophy on life is to grow from your past, plan for the future and strive for greatness. 

As Penner enters her senior year, she has already made some important life decisions that should benefit her in the grand scheme of things. Currently, she is attending The Career Academy (TCA) in order to complete her general education credits towards college, allowing her to “save money in the long run,” and to allow her “more time to figure out what (she) wants to do.” 

She believes that getting the basic stuff out of the way will let her try different pathways to see if anything sticks before ultimately committing to one set career. As of now, she has an interest in exploring journalism, interior design or human relations. 

Penner may be uncertain of her future passion, but she does have numerous hobbies, including playing the piano and skateboarding. 

Penner started playing piano later than most, beginning lessons after meeting her aunt who would play for her. 

“I hadn’t met her until I was in seventh grade, and she played the piano and I just fell in love with it, which was weird because I always hated instruments,” Penner said. “I didn’t really like the sound of them and I was a part of band and I hated it; I hated the clashing of instruments and I played the clarinet and I just hated the sound of it.”

She says the piano is what helped her take steps into appreciating the music she had previously despised. 

“The piano was the only thing I liked to hear and then it slowly got me into other instruments,” Penner said. 

Now, she has expanded her musical palette, with her favorite genres being jazz, blues and classical. 

During quarantine, with excessive free time, Penner additionally decided to pick up skateboarding out of boredom. 

“I just have a cruise board right now, but I want to get a trick board,” she said. “You can still do [tricks] with the cruise board, but it’s harder and the board’s longer.” 

Penner says she also enjoys painting and thinks it would be cool to some day paint her skateboard. 

Although the COVID-19 pandemic allowed Penner to pick up new hobbies, she also feels it caused her to miss out on a lot of great opportunities. 

“The last three years were just tainted by COVID in some way, which really hindered a lot of high school experiences,” she said. 

Penner says that if she were to do high school again, she would have done more. 

“I definitely wish I would have gotten involved a lot sooner. I think it would have helped me grow a lot,” she said. 

Penner hopes to make a lasting impact at LSE before her time here is up. 

“I definitely would want to be known as someone who is positive and outgoing,” she said. “And also someone who you can think back on and be like, ‘she’s probably successful right now’.”

Despite those few regrets, she is feeling optimistic about life and where she is heading. She believes she has not yet reached her full potential. 

“I am in an awkward stage in my life, but I feel like I have a lot of good things coming up and a lot of plans for the future,” she said. 

After a car crash totaled her car, Penner was lucky to come out unscratched and believes that since the world has something great planned for her, she is– in some way– untouchable, or immune to death until that thing happens.

“I have always had this sense– maybe it’s super narcissistic or something– that I’m just gonna do something amazing,” she said.