It’s 9:30 p.m. It has been another exhausting day for freshman Holly Long and she will be asleep the moment her head hits the pillow. Balancing between playing two instruments, playing as a midfielder in soccer, Girl Scouts, singing and playing her viola at church events, and community service, she does her best to maintain a constant sleep schedule.
9:30 p.m. is the bedtime Holly Long has set for herself and is determined to stick to.
“It’s very important that I get sleep,” Holly Long said. “My activities and sports demand it of me and I expect nothing less of myself. I have always had this bedtime and it’s important to me to keep it.”
Holly Long doesn’t just participate in her activities. She excels in them with her personal motto of, “play hard or go home,” she shows her dedication and her seriousness to all that she does.
Freshman twin sister Ellen Long sees this and does all she can to be supportive of her sister.
“I try to go to most of her soccer games to cheer her on,” Ellen Long said, “And sometimes she will call me on the way home from something and I’ll have a snack ready by the time she gets back.”
Holly Long is equally supportive of her sister.
“Sometimes she’ll go with me to the Arboretum, which is my favorite place in the world, and we’ll just walk around,” Ellen Long said.
Holly Long always is genuinely friendly to others no matter how much she has on her workload.
“Holly … entertains me,” freshman friend Madeline Fines said, “She has a lot of things to do, but she is never too busy to stop and give a kind word or greeting. We have been friends for a long time and she has always done a lot of stuff. It’s just … Holly.”
Holly Long doesn’t just participate in her activities, she loves what she does.
“I play both the flute and the viola and when I was younger, I decided that I wanted to try both a band and a strings instrument, and I also did choir at that time as well, and they just stuck with me and I couldn’t decide which one to choose, so I chose both,” Holly Long said. “Each activity is just a part of me and they make me feel like I belong. It’s the little moments in the things I do that count and are really important.”