Valedictorian Christina Lusi Finds Comfort In The Unknown

The chaotic days leading up to graduation, the speech that she hasn’t quite finished, and the fear of leaving the place that she has known her entire life are only few of the things going through Christina Lusi’s mind. As this year’s East Greenwich High School valedictorian, she finds comfort in not knowing what the future holds for her.

“I’m just going to see where things go. I know some people who have the next 20 years of their life all planned out and I’ve never been that sort of person,” she said.

Lusi, like her classmates, has an aspiration to begin college in the fall and study something she has always been passionate about; she will be attending Brown University. With the next four years ahead of her though, she appears to be content with taking things slowly.

“I mean, it’s obviously good to know what you want to do because it gives you a lot of direction," she said, "but I don’t really mind not knowing because I want a chance to explore and keep an open mind about everything.”

Lusi has gone to school with the same students since kindergarten. Even this year’s salutatorian, Jack Payette, and Lusi graduated from Sweet Peas together, something that she looks back on and laughs at (a photo of the two of them from that earlier graduation day is attached at right). She admits though that their lives in the small town of East Greenwich coming to a close is a bit overwhelming, and hasn’t quite sunk in yet.

“I’m going to miss the sort of community and the people. It’s a small town and I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ll definitely miss just knowing everyone, but at the same time it’s really exciting to go to a new place where you don’t know absolutely everyone,” she said.

For the last four years, Lusi feels that she has been involved at the high school, yet she made it a point to focus on her studies. She admits that she never really thought about being valedictorian, though it didn’t come as a big surprise.

“It mostly just happened because I did really well at school. I wasn’t really focused on class rank or anything. I was really more concerned about doing the best that I could. So I did well, but it wasn’t a goal of mine to outcompete other people,” she said.

The one thing that made Lusi a bit hesitant though was the speech that she has to give on Sunday. She claimed that speeches aren’t exactly her forte, but she has a lot that she wants to say. One point that she will touch on: why high school is important.

“It’s definitely a good opportunity to say everything that’s on your mind, which is sort of what makes it overwhelming. There aren’t any guidelines or anything, they just tell you, ‘you have to write a speech that is five to ten minutes long,’” she said.

Lusi, like many, feels that graduation is a sense of closure and that her speech will play a role in that. She described that the senior class has witnessed a lot of changes in the last four years, namely multiple schedule changes and a different principal almost every year.

In between it all though, Lusi found passion in something outside the walls of the East Greenwich High School. Lusi started rowing her sophomore year and she laughed when she admitted that she has done it essentially every season since.

“I liked doing it through high school because I liked that it was a sport outside of school. It gave me a chance to meet people from other schools that I probably would have never met otherwise,” she said.

Lusi has been rowing at The Narragansett Boat Club in Providence, a club team that rows mostly all year round. She plans to continue to do crew throughout the summer, since she can take classes most mornings. During high school, crew took up most of her time, though she said that it never interfered with her studies.

“A lot of people think that doing sports all the time makes it really hard to balance everything, but it actually kind of helped me. Having less time helps me manage my time better, so it made me pay more attention to time management and getting everything done,” she said.

She is considering going out for the crew team at Brown in the fall, although she hasn’t quite decided. She is thinking about studying chemical engineering there, though she wants to test it out a bit first.

“I’ve always kind of liked science and math. I definitely want to take other classes outside of that, so I really like Brown because it has an open curriculum,” she said.

Graduation this Sunday will be full of excitement and commotion, but like many, Lusi will use the summer that follows to take a breather. She will spend her days rowing and enjoying the small town feel of East Greenwich before people go their separate ways.

Even with the uncertainly of what college might hold, Lusi does not seem to fear the future. Instead, she will begin to explore and in time, find what her passions are. One thing is for sure though and she said it quite simply, “I don’t want to be limited by certain expectations.”

Elizabeth Hanks is a freelance writer. 

To read about Salutatorian Jack Payette, click here.