"The last days finally come to a close," writes Jie Han. "It's almost over. I can taste its bitter sweetness in my mouth. They're turning us loose. We're about to leave high school. By the Great Cheese, what have they unleashed?"

"Every new wave, be it French, German or Blondie, arrives at the coast on the eve of fatigue, unease, and expiration," writes Kumars Salehi. "In other words — I am ready for my life to change."

Senior Andrea Park reminisces about her time with the ups and downs of her Uni High experience. Her thoughts were spurred when she noticed handprints in the lounge from a 1994 alum. "That day in the lounge I was, for the first time in a while, overwhelmed by how little and unimportant I am in the grand scheme of Uni things," she writes. "What, other than a handprint, will I leave for Uni?" She contemplates what she has left for Uni and what Uni has left her.

Gargoyle senior editor Carl Zielinski can't seem to make up his mind as to how he feels about his time at Uni. He definitely liked some things, and hated others, but in the end, "I can’t think of a place where I would have rather gone to high school."

Well, that's it, folks! Finals are over. All we have left are the disorientation picnic on Friday and, of course, graduation on Saturday. The senior editors, led by Michelle Gao and Carl Zielinski, leave you with their last edition of Cheers & Jeers!

Our generation isn't known for its activism. Some people assume that we all sit around and listen to our iPods, play on our Wiis, and watch trashy reality TV shows on our 300-inch HDTV screens as the world becomes an oven, innocent people continue to die and suffer because of neo-imperialism, and disease becomes more rampant and stronger. They assume that our generation is sitting and watching the world fall apart and we have nothing to say or do about it. Well, they haven't met Shara Esbenshade.

"I would not say that cycling is my passion," says competitive cyclist Ethan Stone. "Cycling isn’t a sport, a passion, a hobby; it's a lifestyle. The 'first rule of cycling' is to never stand when you can sit, and never sit when you can lie down. Energy conservation is everything, and I expend as little as energy as possible. It's all about saving everything for the bike." Learn more about Stone's commitment to biking in Rachel Skoza's profile of the senior standout.

“Whether we know it or not, our lives are governed by art,” says Anna Cangellaris. “To me art is the most emotional level of expression I can achieve. It's my creative outlet in which I interpret things I hear, see, and think, into lines, shapes, and colors that ultimately describe myself.” Learn more about what this soon-to-be art student has in mind as she looks ahead to a possible career in advertising.

No mention of the talented Class of 2008 is complete without Alex Zhai, gold medalist at the 2007 International Math Olympiad and current member of the U.S. Physics Team. But for all of the publicity he's received, how much do we really know about this modest, soft-spoken prodigy? Erika Belmont profiles this refreshingly laid-back genius.