As an avid flutist, cross-country athlete, and studious LHS student, Joe Dong has become a beloved and well-known icon within the student body.

Besides spending a handful of non-extracurricular time on homework, an activity that most students see him catching up on, Joe spends the free time he has getting well deserved rest: by watching brain rot study content on YouTube.

The same videos that usually have a singer or celebrity briefing over the contents of a specific unit within an AP course.

With the many activities he willingly chooses to participate in comes the question: how does he manage to do so many things at once? 

Having high anticipation when asking, Joe gave a light-hearted answer to how he deals with so many things.

“I don’t sleep. I slept like five hours yesterday—no, eight. Five for the last couple of days, though.”

Despite that, he clearly shows the dedication he has for what he does—whether or not it’s affecting his rest. Who hasn’t slept only for a couple of hours after cramming for a test, right?

Like anyone who’s ever existed, Joe has a greatest personal strength with a not-so-known talent. Though, I think the “secret” talent is fairly noticeable if you take the moment to point him out during the lunch period.

Joe’s secret talent is…speed walking: “You can’t run in the hallway.” It was something he deemed necessary if he wanted to get to the lunch line first before the horrendous amount of hungry students flocked like seagulls.

As for his greatest strength, discipline, he emphasized the importance of actually going through with something you have to do, whether you want to or not:

“I ran all summer even though I didn’t want to—I did not like running, I do not like running.”

However, his most challenging issue as a student was procrastination. A problem most students I know deal with in most, if not all of their classes. Joe went on to say that it’s still an issue he’s dealing with and that he’s close to no longer having to struggle with it. 

“I’ve been getting better [finally after 4 years] and I just adapted to watching YouTube while doing work, or if I need to concentrate, I can actually put away distractions and lock in sometimes.”

Not only recognizing his issue, I personally believe every student at LHS could reflect on their own academic (or extracurricular) habits when it comes to what they decide is necessary to do.

And yet, behind every impactful student is an impactful figure that affected the student heavily. Joe wholeheartedly went on to praise Mr. Rea, his freshman English teacher, for his classroom environment, as it was one of the classes that he enjoyed when he had it.

I do believe that Rea had a major influence on Joe as a student, given the fact that he wrote an entire article about Rea for Mr. Cangemi’s annual article assignment: The Rea-son we Love English.

Joe went on to reiterate (a statement Mr. Rea presumably said) what he told his class: “I know you guys don’t care about English, but my job is that I want you guys to care more about it.”

And Mr. Rea did exactly that for him.

Athletics & Performing Arts

Similar to most student-athletes  at LHS, Joe joined cross country during his freshman year. To which he emphasized that he didn’t enjoy it but was too committed to drop the sport abruptly. I wouldn’t say that the feeling has entirely changed as he went off:

“I don’t like running, I don’t like racing and I don’t like doing the weight room.”

Despite that, Joe did eventually bring up why he actually sticks around still: “Community and Marcus’ mom’s Alfredo.”

Every runner (hopefully) knows what he’s referring to, though if you don’t know—cross country occasionally hosts “pasta nights” where the group will spend dinner at a specific player’s house and have pasta. The pasta in question is an Alfredo made by Junior Marcus Goncalves’ mom.

I couldn’t tell you whether or not it’s as good as it seems, yet it was good enough that Joe decided to mention it during an “All About Me” project in the Spanish class we have together.

Besides Marcus’ mom’s Alfredo, or just the pasta parties in general—Joe further explained what he meant by “community” when he first said it:

“I mentioned community a lot because I remember vividly most is just the pain of running, and I like to say after 4 years, I’ve seen a great community being built. In cross country: everyone runs the same race, everyone feels the same pain, everyone knows what you feel, and we all are in it together.”

Alongside that, Joe believed that “the cross country community is one of the closest in all the running sports because it’s one of the smallest teams, given that cross country isn’t for everyone.”

He went off to mention, in relation to the back pain he occasionally referenced throughout the interview, the closeness cross country runners have that he compared with the track team:

“[Like the pain I’ve been talking about] and some of the closeness is probably due to cross country runners all racing the same thing compared to track, which there are different events where a distance runner could just avoid a sprinter a whole season because most of the time—they don’t practice together.”

Referring to the discipline he put on himself over the summer by running every day, he admitted that one of the athletic challenges he dealt with was the fact that he hadn’t actually gotten faster; despite runs that ranged 1-3 times a day, with a handful of miles each time.

Joe finished off his athletics history at LHS with a few remarks for future cross country runners:

• “Focus on the pasta parties”
• “Don’t get depressed”
• “Don’t overwork yourself over the summer”
• “Have fun” (put this last for emphasis) 

As for Joe’s part in the performing arts of the school—he started off his career in the LHS band as a drummer, though he currently participates as one of the many flute players. He offhandedly mentioned his experience with marching as well.

After a handful of comments about his hips popping occasionally from both (early high school) band and cross country, Joe gave brief advice for students looking to join the school’s band:

• “Don’t do drums”
• “Don’t do marching”

Future

Joe Dong, like any LHS student would be for their final year to get everything together, has big aspirations for his future by furthering his education and having major goals for life itself past academics.

Of course, besides the amusing comment of “wanting to be a billionaire—no, trillionaire,” in the future, Joe plans to go along with the four-year college lifestyle that most students envision:

“I’d like to attend UPenn Wharton and some other schools like Boston College/University, Western New England…” to which he made sure to mention was “…for their dining hall, and UMass Amherst.”

As for his major, he plans to go into business to “create something to positively impact the world.” A sweet sentiment—a sentiment that correlates with the many positive notions that fellow LHS students already have about him.

A far more sweeter inclusion was one of the major goals he wanted to set up in Ludlow when given the chance. In relation to the library we’ve come to know and love, the Hubbard Memorial Library, Joe hopes to create a music program for younger audiences:

“I’d like to create a successful music program at Hubbard Library, introducing younger kids to instruments, music, and maybe perhaps teaching [really] new instrument learners.”

As for his impact he hopes to make on LHS, he really wants to finish up a website that would act as a guide every student can use for (presumably) every class at our school. One of his major goals would be “finishing my site for study guides for different classes, like AP to standard, made by me and or sent by other students.”

All we can hope for is a smooth transition for Joe as he finishes his final year at LHS and begins the next four years at the college of his choice next fall.