Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, our experiences at Capital High School have been permanently altered. For one, we have spent less time in class with one another as a result of online learning during the pandemic. For many, this has meant a more distant social experience at Capital. This particularly affects upperclassmen, such as juniors or seniors who have been at Capital High School for longer. We have been separated from our peers who we’d usually see in classrooms for over a year of our experience in high school. In turn, we may find we no longer know or never knew many of the seniors at Capital High School. One senior I’d like to call attention to is Jimmy Buker.

Jimmy Buker is a somewhat ordinary student in the Running Start program at Capital High School and SPSCC. I walk home with him most days as he leaves his 6th period class of ToK with Alonso. Jimmy and I agree Alonso is probably the best teacher at Capital High School, or at least one of them.

Jimmy and I sometimes like going to the gym after school, although often something gets in the way. Things that get in the way of hitting the gym include but are not limited to homework, parents, needing to get home to tumwater, and in my case, a tutor I seriously wish I didn’t have. At the gym, Jimmy pretty much just does his thing and I copy him. We do leg days, push days, and pull days. We briefly used to do cardio days, but Jimmy hates those. On the other hand, I also have a problem with cardio – I’m an addict.

Beyond the gym, Jimmy watches a lot of “One Piece”, an anime series about the rubber kid Monkey D. Luffy and his journey across the East Blue Sea to find the One Piece. One Piece has aired episodes since 1999, and currently has 1,014 episodes at the time this article was made. Episodes are still being released with no sign of stopping. Jimmy often talks about One Piece and the various shenanigans the vast variety of characters get up to.

Jimmy has no regrets doing Running Start during covid. His reasoning is that the online system for SPSCC was a lot better than it was for CHS, although I didn’t end up asking why. I wonder what he meant by that. Still, I can at least agree that I didn’t learn much during online schooling at CHS.

In summary, Jimmy is a well rounded kid and a good gym partner. There’s still a lot I don’t know about him, but I’ve always appreciated his company. He’s one of those kids who went off the map after Sophomore year thanks to Running Start, and frankly, I wish I went off the map with him.