MayaZier

“The world is your oyster.” This is what a lot of people say when talking about dreams. What it literally means is that the world is an oyster and the endless opportunities within are the pearl. Alright alright, enough of the seafood talk. But seriously, dreams are just the beginning of an incredible journey. 

As Cinderella would say, “A dream is a wish your heart makes.” Go after your dreams. It is as simple as that. Well, not so simple when your dream is to walk on the moon, but still, not impossible.

Junior Layla Wilke-Conant has wanted to be involved in the acting community since she was a little girl. “As a child, I was very dramatic, which could be positive and negative, but I always thought what they did on TV looked so interesting. As a lot of children, I loved to play imaginative games, so the idea of performing those for other people seemed fun to me,” she said. Wilke-Conant doesn’t think she will pursue it as a full-time career, but she “wants to stay involved in the theater community especially.”  

To further her involvement, Wilke-Conant just tried out for the school play after she stage managed for the musical in the fall. “I may do theater as a hobby and then, of course, watch performances at Marian and on Broadway.” 

Since 8th grade, Wilke-Conant has looked up to “Criminal Minds” actress Kirsten Vangsness. “She plays an eccentric computer girl for the criminal bureau. After watching some interviews with her, I realized how much she made her character like herself,” Wilke-Conant said. 

She was very often in her own clothes on set because she took Penelope Garcia, her role, and added a lot of her own spunk to it. 

“I also found out that apparently, she was only supposed to be in one episode in a short scene, but the audience and directors fell so in love with how she played her role, that she stayed for all 15 seasons. I was inspired by this because she made her character so appealing that she changed not only the show’s outcome, but her own life. If I ever ended up being an actress, I would want to make an impact like that!” Wilke-Conant said. 

Freshman Joelle McKamy’s dream is to be a forensic scientist. “I grew up watching crime shows, and I was really intrigued by the topic of learning about what happened to someone before their death,” McKamy said. To help her reach her goal, “I am learning more about the body and how it works and functions,” McKamy said. 

Katherine Dietz, a sophomore, dreams of becoming a videogame designer. “I love playing games, and I loved the computer classes at my middle school. We got to make short games in Scratch, which introduced me to the idea of game creation,” Dietz said. 

To help her reach her goal, Dietz is taking computer science classes and “looking into different game engines to begin working on a game,” she said. 

Dietz looks up to “the games Hollow Knight and Stardew Valley, since both games were created by small teams with very limited budgets, yet still managed to be successful,” she said. 

A very famous quote is, “she believed she could so she did.” These Marian girls believe they can, so they will.